


A Disappearance at Danvers

by eighth_chiharu, StarKillerBae (Luciferous)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Character Death, Established Relationship, Ghost Hunters, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Married Kylux, Outdated Medical Practices, Paranormal Investigators, Psychic Abilities, Rey Skywalker, Sad with a Happy Ending, The Paranormal, depictions of mental illness, ghost - Freeform, mentions of lobotomies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2020-11-27 18:30:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20952986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eighth_chiharu/pseuds/eighth_chiharu, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luciferous/pseuds/StarKillerBae
Summary: During the largest paranormal investigation to ever take place at Danvers State Hospital, renown psychic medium Kylo Ren vanished without a trace, leaving behind his husband Armitage Hux. In the years following, the grief-stricken Hux rose to fame within the world of parapsychology for his book 'A Disappearance at Danvers'. Now, four years after Kylo's disappearance and with his case still left unsolved, Hux is asked to return to Danvers for a final investigation.





	1. Prologue: Indian Summer

**Author's Note:**

> I promise this has a happy ending, you just have to trust me for this ride along.
> 
> And thank you to the AMAZING Lana/eighth_chiharu and Arkaniis for working with me on this!

**09:00, Tuesday, October 4th, 2005** **  
** **Danvers State Hospital** **  
** **Danvers Massachusetts**  
  
October 4th, 2005 was an unseasonably warm autumn day. The leaves had only just begun to turn crimson and gold, a few of the more ambitious trees having gotten an early start coloring the hills. The first volleys of leaves fell with the blustery winds, warm air blowing like a last breath of summer over drying grass that had not yet lost its green but was soon to do so.

Danvers State Hospital did not loom or darken the landscape around it. The sun shone just as bright in the clear autumn air, and the old building stretched and sprawled its red brick wings like a massive bird coming to roost in the hills surrounding it. Its spire at the front and center of the building gave the appearance of a church rather than the darkest chapter in psychiatric medicine.

As Hux took the initial photographs of the building's exterior, he could imagine at any moment cars pulling up to its doors, old ladies being let out for Sunday service. Instead, the lots fronting the building remained empty of cars. Old leaves were the only things that skittered across cracked pavement, and inside the halls stretched on, empty and abandoned since 1992.

"Well, Kylo, what do you think? You're the medium here," Hux said as he raised the camera to take another photo, focusing tightly on the windows that surprisingly still had much of their glass intact.

Kylo was dressed head to toe in all black: black jeans, black boots, black pea coat that hung around his knees despite the warm day. His hair was loose around his face, rustled by the wind, and Hux wondered if he ought to catch photos of Kylo while the latter was distracted. The only thing breaking up the monochrome was the wedding ring on a chain around Kylo's neck, glinting as it caught the autumn light. 

Kylo finally spoke, his voice a deep rumble. "I think you're thinking about something besides the hunt tonight... You're not very impressed with the building."

Hux only realized he had been smiling at his husband of six months when he scowled at him intentionally. "I think there are better uses for your skills than reading my mind," Hux replied in a clipped tone, turning back to the building to capture a few more shots.

"I don't need to read your mind to know," Kylo replied, his pierced eyebrow quirked and a wry smile on his lips.

"Oh, so just falling back on cold reading?" Hux asked dryly, intentionally being grating just for the sake of ruffling Ren's feathers.

Kylo's voice was mulish. "You can't cold read a building." 

Hux knew he'd won, smiling behind his camera for a moment. "No, but you can read your husband. Now, what do you think about the building? Maybe that'll get me more excited than the exterior has so far." He lowered his camera once again to look at Kylo.

"It feels like it's sleeping." Kylo had crossed his arms over his chest while sulking, but now he stepped closer to Hux and put his arm around his husband's narrow waist.

"Sleeping?" Hux pressed. In their nearly ten years of working together ghost hunting, he'd heard Kylo glumly refer to buildings as 'sleeping' before. That usually made for a bad investigation. It was Hux's turn to quirk a brow. Though he hoped that wasn't the case, dead investigations were a waste of time, and on this scale, qresources. "Do you think we ought to pick another day... after it's had its nap?"

"No... I mean..." Kylo leaned into Hux's side, his hulking mass dwarfing Hux though they were nearly of a height. Kylo rested his chin on Hux's shoulder. "...it doesn't have anything to feed on. You'd sleep too if you were hungry."

In that way that only Kylo could manage, Hux felt goosebumps rise across his arms. Something about what Kylo had said struck Hux as premonition, one of those rare insights Kylo got from time to time that always turned out to be right. When they had been young, barely eighteen, Hux had scoffed and doubted Kylo's ability with such things, so many screaming matches had. But now, after ten years of watching Kylo’s cryptic musings play out, he knew better.

Hux kissed Kylo's nose before sliding his arm around his husband, looking up at the building and taking it in. This was one of the largest hunts they had ever done in terms of scale and man power at their disposal, and the building itself spanned acres of land and had half a dozen wings to its name. It was a massive undertaking.

"Well, I guess we had better get set up and feed the beast."

  
**14:00 October 4th, 2005**  
  
"Mitaka, I want a full map drawn up of all camera locations and their range of view before sundown. I don't want to find any missed points of interest and have to go chasing down cameras after the sun sets," Hux called into the radio as he paced the lobby area where their command hub had been set up. A static riddled 'Yessir' came back over the radio, and Hux made a mark on his mental checklist before calling the next in line. "Thannison, is your team in place in the nurse's apartments?"

Hux stalked the room as he waited. He still had to check in wing by wing with the crew of nearly twenty people who had all signed up to operate and run the surveillance and investigation of seventy-seven acre site. It was a hive of activity now, crews from the city in to inspect for structural stability, interns rushed about securing lighting and cameras, security called to lead teams through the buildings before they would be dismissed for the night.

But the sun shone bright through the windows still, and Hux had only just finished calling across the radio before it crackled back to him from across the property. 'Nearly set up sir, be done and ready well before sundown.'

"Thank you, Thannison," Hux said, just as another intern hurried into the lobby. He was followed by a small crew of men in hard hats, workers sent by the owners of the site to ensure the safety of the areas under investigation. At Hux's own expense of course.

"Mr Hux? We just got through with the tunnels beneath the morgue." One of the men pulled off his respirator mask, looking uncomfortable with the whole operation. "The current mapped areas of tunnel have been cleared, though we encourage the use of respirators in any area below the ground level. We've got signs of mold."

Hux nodded at the assessment, accepting a rolled up layout of the tunnels beneath the facility from another worker, aware it represented less than a quarter of the alleged tunnels that existed. "Understood. I'll alert my team. We still need an assessment of the top floor, however. Will there be time to check the staff lounge areas?"

Hux felt a tension headache building. He always got one hours before an investigation, but the cool dark of abandoned buildings and the rush of coffee would see him through. The running of the crew and the set up was Hux’s dominion. After dark, Kylo took the lead. Remembering that suddenly reminded Hux he hadn't seen Kylo in nearly two hours. He sighed and added yet another item to his mental list.

**15:25 October 4th, 2005 - Kylo**

Kylo sat cross legged in the field of knee high grass, in the shadow of the old building. It was much cooler here, despite the warmth everywhere else from the bright sunlight. Here, the earth was cold, still damp with last week's rain. The sun hardly reached this place. The well fed oak trees cast their shade across the area like a veil, and the smell of decaying leaves was pungent.

All around him in tidy rows were small stone markers, single posts barely a foot high, each denoting the grave of some lost soul. He could feel something, too. Not the graves or those laid to rest here, but the building, the way it echoed and groaned under the sudden boom of activity that the bricks and hallways found familiar. People going hurriedly down long corridors, stopping into rooms not to see their content, but to do the work assigned and get out, get on with their next task. The command hubs felt like nurses' stations, the interns like doctors and orderlies each with their own responsibilities. It was a miraculous coincidence, really. The order and tidy efficiency Hux directed had created a perfect storm, a jump start to the heart, and the building shifted and stirred, the hum of life calling memories back, trickling in one by one.

Kylo knew his body sat in a field outside, surrounded by the graves of those lost, but his mind wandered those halls, across polished linoleum, past walls whose paint was neither chipped nor cracked, and he felt the rustle of a soft cotton tunic on his skin. He wasn't alone. In each room, another patient howled or paced. Trapped even in death.

He passed a rec room and felt two old men who had been there most of their lives, playing the same game of checkers day after day. Today was just another day, and a nurse hurried past, their lingering spirits not seeing the difference between the clipboard Mitaka carried and the one a nurse would hold. One's hurried stride was the same as the other's. Kylo paused, then sat down and watched them play checkers.

They could no more tell Mitaka wasn’t a nurse than they could tell that Kylo wasn’t a patient. He was just another wayward soul the walls had claimed. He basked in the quiet anonymity of being a nobody as the two old men played out their game of checkers. Time slipped away like water through his fingers, and Danvers appeared more and more as it had once been, incandescent lights and nurses in white dresses going about their rounds, until at long last a nurse noticed them. Rec time was nearly over. The knowledge of that was instinctual, already inside him. He knew they were going to be collected, and he heard his name called.

"Ren?"

Kylo watched the checkers game that had been played every day for years, stretching on without end, ignoring the nurse who called to him.

"Ren?" the voice pressed, most insistent. "REN!"

Kylo started as if doused with cold water. He looked around, frantic and feral for a brief moment, suddenly outside, disoriented and alarmed, but the nurse was gone. Hux crouched beside him instead, a worried look on his face.

"Are you with me? You looked... lost," Hux said as he settled himself down on the grass beside Kylo, an old Catholic habit making him check that he wasn't sitting on any grave.

Kylo nodded, groggy and sore as his spirit and his body settled back together. "I _ was _ lost, Hux." Kylo answered, his voice scratchy and dry. "That's how it's designed..."

Hux frowned and reached out to touch his husband's forehead, glad at least when Kylo closed his eyes and accepted the caress. "Yes, a labyrinth of hallways and tunnels. Well, lucky us, we have a map." With the sun still shining, even if it didn't quite reach where they sat, Hux was still in control. His assurances had weight that Kylo could accept.

But the night was coming quick.

"Come on then, Ren. We've just gotten the all clear to start sweeping the top floor. That's where most of the doctors' offices were, and I'd like you to get a read on them." Satisfied his husband wasn't feverish, Hux pulled himself up before offering out a hand to Kylo. Kylo took it and rose to follow, like a lost child or wayward patient, his eyes lingering on the building as they went.

**19:00 October 4th, 2005, Sundown - Kylo**

Kylo scarfed down McDonald's cheeseburgers like they were his last meal. Hux would have been offended at his husband's manners, but six months of marriage, five years of living together and ten years of working these hunts had made Hux blind to the fact he had chosen to share his bed with a wild animal.

The prep work was done, the stations set up. Everyone knew their place and their job, and now, with the sun hanging low and the sky orange and gold, it was the traditional pre-hunt dinner. Sacks and sacks of McDonald's had been brought in, and the entire team gathered together, laughing and joking before the investigation began.

"Kylo, anything to note for Mitaka's wing?" Hux asked, turning to Kylo midway through a discussion he and Mitaka had been having about the male nurses' building. Three floors of rooms, and not so much as an accidental death in the showers could be found on record, yet the entire building had been marked as a hotspot by the locals. Particularly some of the former nurses.

Kylo looked up from shoveling more fries into his mouth and grabbed a soda to wash it down before responding.

Hux cut in with a dry, "Charming."

"The spirits draw on me for energy, Hux, so I need energy," Kylo replied to his husband's remark, rolling his eyes and taking another sip of his Coke. "Mitaka..... nurses' building?" Kylo's eyes narrowed as he tried to remember. He had done readings on so many areas now he felt like his head was swimming with it all.

Mitaka nodded and looked at Kylo with that mix of fear and idolization Kylo detested but Hux seemed endeared to. "Yes, the male nurses' dormitory, built in 1927. It's been reported that people have been scratched in there?"

Thannison heard that, and drawled out lazily, "Are you sure you're not confusing it with the women's building? I don't know how many male nurses are growing out their nails."

"None of that, Thannison, or I'm switching you and Mitaka," Hux said, dipping a chicken nugget primly in some sauce. It wasn't his favorite meal, but everyone else insisted it was tradition.

Kylo wadded up his burger wrapper and tossed it over Mitaka's head at the trash can, just missing it and seeming not to care. "No. It was one of the first buildings we checked. The building wasn't active at that point." Kylo remembered the boring early morning walk through of some of the outer buildings, but now, while he was sure no one else could sense it, the building felt alive in a way that made him itchy to be on their way, to end dinner and start chasing down the shadows that shifted and lurked in every corner of this place.

"What do you mean active? Like do ghosts have a curfew?" Another intern, Lenton, spoke up around a mouthful of fries, his manners nearly as bad as Kylo’s. It was his first time working with First Order investigations. He came well reviewed, but in his own team was something of a skeptic, a quality Hux tended to like, but he was the kind of skeptic Kylo hated.

"No, but without any input you can't expect output," Kylo grumbled, refusing to explain paranormal energy theory. Lenton ought to already have been familiar if he was here anyway.

"So, how do you purpose we offer 'input'?" Lenton asked, his voice bored, tinged with a California accent.

"You being there is input," Kylo responded, scooting closer to Hux.

"What Kylo is saying, and this will go for the entire team, is the paranormal fields in this building are sensitive to energy," Hux explained. "A normal person offers energy, some more than others as our test have shown. For most of us who aren't Kylo, the easiest way is to use a broad spectrum energy emitter, or in some investigations, even leaving equipment out can be an energy source. It's where the phenomenon of equipment sometimes dying right before or during anomalies comes from. What the broad emitters do is try to put out free energy across a wide spectrum, which leaves the most potential for an anomaly to happen."

"And hopefully keep our equipment from being drained?" Mitaka asked, rejoining the conversation.

"And that as well. Nothing makes us look sloppier than batteries running dead just before a major anomaly," Hux agreed. His phone buzzed, indicating it was nearly time. The shadows were growing longer, too. "I assume everyone here is familiar with the equipment and their task?"

A chorus of yeses and the shuffling began, last bits of food grabbed for the night, teams pairing up, radio checks run. Hux stayed beside Kylo, and together they watched the team work. There was a satisfaction in seeing a well-groomed team operate, and even Kylo felt it.

Hux turned to Kylo with a smile. "Are you ready darling?" he asked, his voice quiet. It was rare he used an endearment in public, rarer still when he accepted Kylo's kiss without protest. Short and brief, a stolen moment before their work called them to action.

**07:20 October 5th 2005, Sunrise**

Hux watched as the sun rose above the trees, painting the sky a brilliant golden hue that put even the early autumn leaves to shame. The light was milky pale where it reached the brick building, too weak to pierce through the flashing red and blue lights that had in the darkness seemed blindingly bright. They'd seemed as beacons calling lost ships to shore, but now in the morning sun, Hux felt completely unmoored. Wrapped in a shock blanket, he watched as more vehicles arrived, the barking of dogs filling the air as search teams spread out.


	2. Old Habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4 years later

**15:55 October 4th, 2009, Lecture Hall A,** **   
** **University of Connecticut**

"All things end." Hux said as he wrote the same thing out across the chalkboard, underlining it before turning to the students that had filled his lecture hall for the past hour. "This is a basic fact of life, seasons end, life ends...." Hux looked at his students wryly. "Even this lecture, ends."

He moved over to his desk and grabbed the remote to flip the slide to an excavation of an early hominid burial. "But, across all faiths, religions and cultures, there persists the idea of an afterlife. The afterlife as we have discussed it today can mean an eternal paradise. Maybe an immortal life with your worldly possessions that have been buried with you, or a place of hellfire and torment for the criminals of society. Reincarnation, or a watchful place where the dead may guide us who still live. And likewise, across all cultures, we have some idea of the ghost. The spirit of the departed who lingers behind, sometimes to give a final message, sometimes to torment and cause pain, sometimes trapped. The variety of spiritual beliefs surrounding the idea of the 'ghost' span millennia. So why, then, is this idea so enduring? Eighty percent of Americans in 2005 believed in an afterlife. The Travel Channel's number one spotlight show last season was Ghost Adventures. And yet, across human history, and with all the modern technology available to us, we still do not have concrete, definitive, scientific proof of the paranormal. Why does this belief persist?"

He flipped the slide again, this time showing the details of their homework assignment. "This is the question I want everyone to answer. This will be an opinion piece, so your grade will hinge on how well you back your own opinion. I want to see a minimum of ten cited sources, and clear defined points of argument for your opinion. We'll be using these essays in our next segment as well, so please, do be thorough and support your own beliefs, not the beliefs you think I would like to hear. We are following the same format as last week's essay. Details will be available online for anyone who has forgotten." 

Hux turned on the lights, signaling the end of the lesson. Students began gathering their bags, some eagerly shuffling towards the door, others lingering, frantically writing or waiting for their friends.

He was tired. After three classes and a small mountain of homework still left to grade, Hux was sure he would soon be sprouting grey hair to match his fellow professors. There was no rest to be had, however. Students began to drift towards his desk, looking for extensions or further clarification of his assignment. It was to be expected, and Hux could only settle in at his desk, and, surrounded by paperwork, held kings court for the students who chose to waste their parents' money on a course on the paranormal. It was almost thirty minutes before the last student left, leaving Hux blessedly alone in the quiet of his classroom.

Until the steady clack of high heels echoed across the wood floors. Hux looked up, not surprised to see Phasma sauntering into his room.

"Dr. Phasma," Hux greeted, though their relationship was far past formalities by now. Too many nights at each other's houses grading paperwork and laughing at sloppy essay mistakes together over bottles of wine.

"I'd ask why you're working today, but you're a workaholic," Phasma said, cutting right to the point as she leaned over his desk.

"I have bills to pay, and it sets a bad example to skip work," Hux replied dryly.

"I think everyone would understand you taking a day off."

"It's been four years, Phasma, we were only married for six months. I'm over it," Hux shot back hotly, grabbing a stack of papers and straightening them just to have his hands busy.

"So you're completely over your husband?" Phasma asked with a raised eyebrow and unimpressed look.

"If this is about me dating again, you can be on your way."

"I'm insulted you think this is about that." Phasma's tone matched Hux's. It was a tense subject, but as Hux's only friend, Phasma often felt a certain responsibility to step in, one Hux was never sure if he appreciated or not.

"I'm not going. I'm not interested in it." Hux stood up from the desk and walked away, aggressively wiping the chalk from the black board.

"So you write the book that saved Danvers from demolition, the book that's directly responsible for the twenty-four million dollar preservation grant the building received, and you won't lead the first investigation to happen since construction?" Phasma followed him to the board, her heels clicking like urgent insects. "You're the American Victor Hugo and you hate your own Notre Dame."

“I don’t hate the building, Phasma! It's a building!” Hux snapped back with more bite than he had intended, deflating when Phasma’s recoiled at his tone. Tiredly, he set the chalk eraser down beside sticks of broken chalk like little white finger bones littering a crypt. Being a teacher of parapsychology often felt like being a crypt keeper. Half mocked and reviled, half feared, and always amongst the dead.

“I’m sorry,” he replied.

The silence stretched until Phasma said, with deceptive lightness, “You buy the wine next week and it's forgiven." She put a hand on his shoulder. "But you should go. They’re recreating your investigation page by page.”

“I know.”

Hux leaned into the steadying touch. He wasn’t infallible, not like they believed him to be. Ren had cut him to his core.

**22:34 October 4th, 2009** ****   
**Manchester, Connecticut** ****   
**Hux Residence** ****   
**   
** The TV droned on quietly, the volume turned down low as a rerun of an utterly dull war documentary played in the background. It seemed like all the History Channel bothered to play these days. In the late hours of the evening when sleep wouldn’t come, the black and white footage was a familiar comfort.

He'd known instinctively before he had ever stepped in the door it would be a long night, and he'd been sadly proven right. Despite the heaviness of his eyelids, there were still grades to be submitted and tests to score.

Perhaps the documentary wasn't the smartest choice.

He set his red pen down and rubbed at his eyes, wincing at their dry soreness. The house was dark, the documentary little more than white noise. Millicent purred contentedly on his lap, asleep in an undignified position with her soft white belly up. It felt so good to not read anything for a moment. Just sit...

His eyelids dragged down, down, and he fell asleep at last. 

  
  
**01:47 October 5th, 2009** ****   
**Manchester, Connecticut** **   
** **Hux Residence**

Hux awoke with a start, his heart racing and shirt sticking to his sweat-soaked skin. The quiet night had been shattered by a high pitched wail that seemed to drown out all other noise. Frantic, Hux sprang off the sofa, disoriented and shivering in the cold house with the thin afgan blanket flung off himself in his haste.

The noise morphed into a loud buzzing hum that demanded attention, and Hux could only stand there in cold terror, the hair on his arms rising in the darkness of his own home. Millicent was gone, and the flickering of the TV cast odd shadows as he looked around, eyes slow to adjust to the darkness, his sleep addled brain struggling to catch up. Years of paranormal investigations came flooding back to him as he blinked sleep from his eyes. How many nights had he been alone in dark rooms, waiting for the sound of some piece of equipment to indicate the presence of the paranormal? He hadn't been afraid then, but now, in the darkness, icy fear stabbed through his heart.

It was the memories that made him realize what the sound was. He'd know that noise anywhere. It had never been a comforting sound, but Hux knew what he needed to find. 

He rushed to the storage closet, tripping over his sofa in the darkness as he hurried through the house, too desperate to turn on the lights as he raced through shadows. He stumbled into the carpeted hallway and threw open the closet door, the sound so loud and close it was nearly unbearable. Darkness gaped at him from within, as if daring Hux to reach into the impenetrable unknown.

He took a deep breath, and spurred on by the ringing wail, he fumbled blindly for the dangling string that served as a light cord. For a moment he found nothing, his questing hand empty, but at last he found it, yanking on it and blinding himself momentarily as bright light flooded the small space.

Blinking away the spots in his vision, Hux fell to his knees and began to dig through old duffel bags piled on the floor of the closet. They'd sat there untouched since that last investigation, ignored and gathering dust. His hands shook as he dragged his fingers through wires and equipment, tore apart the bags until finally finding what he had been looking for.

It was the EMF detector. Its batteries should have died ages ago, but there it was, in his hand, lit up and screaming.

Hux could only stare at the little device, unsure what to do after his frenzied race to reach it. If it had gone off so strongly on a hunt, the bar wobbling at the top of its range, he would have turned to Kylo, waiting for his medium to lead the way while Hux reached for the next piece of equipment to follow up. Just holding the little device made him remember Kylo on a hunt, and the way he would grin, wolf-like, if Hux’s machine signaled the presence of the otherworldly.

Hux sat back on his heels and looked up and down his dark hallway. There was no sign of the paranormal, no, but it was cold. Unusually cold? He wasn't sure. He had never had one single paranormal experience in his Manchester home. He'd moved here to escape the memories of his old life, and until now, he'd succeeded.

“...Ren?” Hux whispered softly, sure his voice would be completely drowned out by the machine, but the whisper seemed to hang heavy and audible on his lips. 

Just as suddenly as it had begun, the wailing stopped. 

The silence left behind was deafening. Hux could somehow  _ hear _ himself shivering, his breath loud and fast in the darkness. Hux curled around the EMF detector, wishing fervently that Kylo was here. He would know what was happening, he would explain everything. But Kylo was gone, just like whatever presence had alerted the EMF detector, and all Hux could do was cradle the detector close, chest constricting painfully, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

He stayed like that for what seemed like hours but had to be only minutes, until the tension seeped from his muscles. His breathing evened out almost against his will, and the stinging at the corner of his eyes abated. When he finally rose crookedly to his feet, still clutching the device to his chest like something precious, he began a slow trek to the kitchen, flipping on each light he passed until the whole house was illuminated. Nothing else was out of place, no other sign of activity. Even Millicent was still gone, no doubt spooked by the noise. He was completely alone.

He set the detector down on the marble-topped kitchen counter. His hands shook as he turned to the cabinets, fetching from a high cabinet one of two Waterford tumblers and a bottle of expensive scotch, the former being a wedding present, the latter purchased on a whim after moving to this house. He indulged in alcohol very seldom, and the bottle was almost full. His father had died a drunkard, and Hux saw no need to follow in his father’s footsteps, not when he had intentionally spent his whole life being a disappointment to his father's ideals. Now, though. Now was different.

He returned to the counter and poured himself two fingers of scotch, exhaling slowly before tossing it back like cheap rotgut and immediately pouring another. The burn of alcohol grounded him in the real world. He was shaky, the tiredness creeping in as the rush of adrenaline ebbed. In the warm glow of the kitchen light, with Millicent entering the kitchen cautiously from wherever she had hidden, pausing to rub at his leg, everything felt normal again.

It was all too easy to rationalize what had happened. The EMF had been sitting alone in the duffel bag with batteries in it since the last investigation. He remembered throwing his equipment unceremoniously in the closet, intending to forget about it. It was easier to let it sit there out of the way than deal with it, and his intention had become reality. He'd entirely forgotten about all of it. Of course something was bound to go off after three years of neglect. Perhaps the batteries were corroded, or the EMF had been jolted into life by some other, more complicated internal failure.

Sipping the second glass of scotch more slowly, savoring the way it burned down his throat, Hux resolved to put this behind him. He was being childish. He would find the fault that caused the ridiculous scene, then go back to sleep before he wasted any more idle fancy on spirits. Half a life gone on supposed ‘ghosts’ was more than enough already.

“Well, Millicent,” Hux remarked drly, “I suppose this will be your first investigation.” He set aside his glass and reached out to pet Millie, who trilled and curled her tail into a pleased question mark shape. One last caress, then Hux turned away from his companion and pulled open the spare kitchen drawer he kept for miscelania, forcing his hand steady.

He rummaged only for a few moments before finding what he was looking for: a new pack of batteries and a screwdriver. He pulled more tools from the drawer and set everything out on the counter. He would prove the device had simply malfunctioned. He might be sweaty and in need of a shower, scared awake by a relic of an old life, but if Ren’s spirit was haunting him after all this time, trying to nudge him towards the Danvers hunt, then he was going to have to work a lot harder than that.

He set to work with a dogged determination that seemed so normal in the wee hours of the night, entirely acceptable at 2:00am. He took up the EMF detector and put the screwdriver to use, first checking the battery compartment and finding only some light corrosion, not enough to have caused the spike. More screws fell victim to his search, set out on the counter in neat rows, and soon the case was disassembled on the marble. Piece by piece, Hux took the machine apart, growing more irate as no obvious faults materialized.

Frustrated, he put the device back together, inserting the new batteries and trying it once more. It flicked to life just as it should have, the bar wobbling in the normal range for a home.

“Unbelievable…” Hux muttered to himself around the screwdriver that had found its way into his mouth while his hands were busy. 

Leaving everything on the counter, he stormed down the now well lit hallway and back to the linen closet, hefting the weight of his equipment bags and pulling them out of their forgotten corner and into the bright kitchen.

When a piece of equipment reacted to an anomaly that no other equipment could detect, one must always assume the equipment to be at fault. How many times had Hux personally taken apart, tested, and worked on every tool he employed? How often had he and Ren tested equipment after hunts to prove or disprove results?

This was no different, and so Hux set to work, pulling out the spare EMF detector and checking it over, fitting it with new batteries and taking both on a tour of the house. Hux paced tightly through each room, scowling darkly at the machines as he waved them both about, both within line of each other and behaving as perfectly as he could have ever asked for. Not a single spike in the EMF readings that was worth noting.

He felt manic with failure, and with only Millicent trailing after him, a silent shadow, Hux had no one to judge but himself as he went back to the bags and hauled more equipment out of them. The broad spectrum energy emitter, the tape recorders, the motion capture camera, the touchless thermometer, the thermographic camera, all of it came out, and item by item, Hux began setting up without even realizing it. Testing each piece of equipment, each infuriatingly normal reading spurring him on further. 

He forgot his doubt. He remembered only what he heard. What he knew had happened. The EMF had spiked on a scale he had only seen a handful of times and then died at the mention of a dead man, and if that wasn’t paranormal, he would quit the field tomorrow.    
  
Each piece of equipment went into place as Hux worked on autopilot, preparing each area of the house as he had countless houses. Cameras were set up on tripods, detectors charged and placed where they belonged, and Hux moved through the house, shutting and securing any room not of note, until finally only his kitchen command hub held any bit of light in the darkened house. It was only when Hux had booted up the now out-of-date brick of a laptop and had to wait for the OS to load that he realized what he had done.

Hux stared unhappily at his kitchen, the floor covered in a tangle of wires that snaked out into the gloom like overgrown vines from an ancient temple. The predawn light peeked in at the corners of the kitchen windows, outlining the blinds in thin gray. He looked at Millicent, who had perched on the counter in the only clear space remaining.

“What am I doing?” 

Millicent gave no answer though and began grooming her chest, oblivious to Hux’s internal crisis as he stared at the camera feeds and readings that flashed across his screen.

All mundane. There was nothing. There had never been anything in this house before, no presence, nothing out of the ordinary, but here he was, trying to capture some proof that an old dying piece of equipment he had abandoned three years prior hadn’t just malfunctioned. 

Crouched over his laptop, suddenly aware of what was going on, Hux felt his eyes sting, his breath coming in shorter and shorter bursts. He had never been a crier. Hux remembered his father near beating it out of him, he was to keep a stiff upper lip at all times, he was not to cry no matter how badly it hurt. He remembered at Kylo’s memorial he had barely heard the speeches being given, so focused was he on keeping back tears. He wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t wail and embarrass himself like some wretched widow and throw himself onto the pile of flowers and photos laid out for the memorial.

But here, alone in his own house, years after the love of his life had vanished, the threat of tears was real.

“When did I become this?” Hux asked, voice tight with the effort of not dissolving into tears. He was doing it, holding himself together, but looking around his home, rigged up with wires and recorders, he felt like he had somehow failed himself. When had he been reduced to a reactionary washout that talked only to his cat and in truth, hid from an old building full of too many memories?

Hux reached past the wires and Millie and poured himself more scotch. The digital clock on the oven blinked at him. Nearly 5:00am, three hours lost tearing apart his own equipment and home, and for what? A faulty EMF reader?

He drank the scotch and fumbled for one of the many tape recorders, dragging it over and hitting record on the device before he could think better of it. In the darkness he felt torn to shreds and reduced to little more than a rabid cur, but in the morning light he prayed he would be a reasonable, rational man once again. With the light blinking to indicate the tape was recording, Hux looked around before he spoke, beginning the way every such tape began.

“This is Armitage Hux… Manchester Connecticut. The date is October 4th… no 5th. The date is October 5th, the time is uhh.. 4:52am. All people in the building are accounted for.

“If there are any spirits here… please make yourself known.” Hux spoke into the darkness, remembering how many times Ren had spoken those words, but as the seconds ticked by, Hux suspected more and more the only thing haunting him was his own memory.

“If there is a spirit here with me tonight. Please give me a sign.” 

More seconds ticked by, Hux waiting in the darkness for anything. 

“If there are any spirits here, I ask you to please communicate.”

Hux spoke louder, nearly jumping when Millicent hopped off the counter, having forgotten about her for a moment. He could only watch as she walked away.

“The… noise you just heard was my cat,” Hux added listlessly, accounting automatically for any noise interference. But really, what did it even matter now? Closing his eyes and leaning back, Hux gave into the small flickering ghost light of hope.

“Ren ... if you’re here… please.”


	3. What's Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux deals with the aftermath and calls for help from new and old friends.

**07:55 October 5th, 2009** **  
** **Manchester, Connecticut**

**Hux Residence**   
  
Exhaustion hung off of Hux like a heavy robe. Wearing yesterday's slept-in clothing, unshowered and unshaven, he felt a wreck. He gazed blearily at the crystal glass of scotch, smudged now from his fingerprints after a long night of drinking, but suddenly illuminated in the new morning light that came filtering through his office windows. It was still too early by far, but crouched over his desk in his office, Hux could only stare at his phone, finger hovering over the ‘dial’ option under Rey Skywalker’s contact, a number he’d had for so many years he wondered if it would still work.

He reached for his scotch, tossing the last of it back and finally hitting dial before he could talk himself out of it. He listened listlessly as it rang. It was so early, what was he thinking? Hux brushed back his hair that had fallen over his forehead, grimacing at the greasy feeling of it but ignoring it as the dial tone continued for heavy seconds more.

He expected the call to go to voicemail, or fail entirely, but on the last ring it picked up. A woman’s voice came over the line, not groggy or cranky as Hux expected, but chipper and slightly out of breath.

“Good morning! Rey Skywalker, Rebel Investigations.”

Hux blinked at a dirty smudge on his otherwise pristine wall. He wasn't expecting her to sound so…

“Hello…?”

“Rey. Hello, sorry. It's… It's Hux.”

“Oh. Oh! Hey!” There was a conspicuous moment of silence, and Hux could clearly imagine the wrinkle forming between her brows. “It's been a while, is everything alright?”

She was obviously being polite. When she said it had been a while, she was generously glossing over the fact that Hux had not replied to any of her emails or other attempts to reach out over the past few weeks. She'd always had slightly more tact than her cousin, which Hux could now fully appreciate given that he sounded like he had spent the night drinking from the roughness of his voice. Which he had. So.

God, he was a mess.

“As ever. I won't waste your time, I wanted to ask if you were still open to a partnership on the Danvers State Investigation.” He stood up as he spoke, unable to keep still; the rigidness of his back and the firm stride he forced himself to adopt made him feel more stable, even as he carefully stepped over a wire snaked across his floor. He was not a mess, he was in charge.

“It's not a waste! Trust me, I've been hoping you'd call for weeks.” Over the line, he could hear rustling noises before Rey's voice drowned them out, still sweet in her surprise. “Today is the anniversary, right? Is that why-”   
  
Hux suddenly tripped, catching his foot on the wires on his second circle back through the living room, making a startled noise that cut Rey off before he caught himself, jumping right back in before Rey could press further. 

“I'm aware of the date. Yes or no, Miss Skywalker?”

“Miss-? Hux-” She stopped. He’d thrown her off. “Yes, of course we're open to partnership. It would be really helpful for you to be there with us as we- as we try to recreate the conditions of your original investigation.”

“Surely not all of them,” Hux replied dryly as he stalked past the kitchen. More tact than her cousin still wasn't actually that much tact, he suddenly remembered. 

“No, no, I don’t mean all of them, not like that -”

“You must be aware that I consider that hunt to be a devastating personal failure.”

Her laugh filtered through Hux's phone, painfully nervous. “I know, I didn't mean… It's just…”

“It's alright. I understand.”

“Okay. I just thought you might want to talk about him today, that's all.” She managed to come across as apologetic and judgemental all at once.

Hux's face slipped under a stony mask. “I don't.”

She sighed. “That's fine. Did you get my email?”

“Yes, I did. I apologize for my delay in response… I needed to think it over. My teaching schedule had to be considered,” he added quickly, and winced at how obvious a lie it sounded. “But I've cleared that up, obviously.”

“It’s no problem. Like I said, this is all based on your work. I'm just glad you reached out at all.”

“Right. Still. I'm grateful for the last-minute accommodation.” He reached the living room and doubled back, crossing the same wires and passing the same equipment. The second of silence seemed too long, and he quickly rushed on to fill it. “I understand you’re using my book as reference?”

“Yeah. Most people do these days, for pretty much anything. It's the most comprehensive guide on this kind of thing. But, of course, it's even more relevant with what we're trying to do. We'd have to be crazy to ignore it.”

Hux was tempted to ask what, exactly, she was ‘trying to do’, whether she was recreating his investigation so carefully for herself or for her sponsors, but this entire conversation was already straining the thin veneer of respectability he'd managed to conjure. If she admitted she was going to be tracing his footsteps just for added drama while beaming at a camera for a History Channel special, he might lose his will to do this.

“I'm flattered,” he responded instead, trying not to sound self-absorbed. “Thank you, again. I won't keep you any longer.”

“Okay, I’ll let the team know you're in sometime today. I think they'll probably want to have a meetup before the actual investigation just to-” 

Just to what, Hux didn't find out. In the background, another female voice called out Rey's name, interrupting her. Hux heard a repeated 'Rey? Oh!' followed by muttered apologies. The rustling noises he heard a few minutes earlier, noises he’d assumed were paperwork, took on a very different context in hindsight. A shirt, maybe, hastily pulled on as she was torn from her warm bed and sleeping companion by an unexpected call. Lord knew Hux was familiar enough with that routine. Or had been.

His feet stumbled to a halt. His face burned, his chest ached with the sudden sharp reminder of his loss that not even the scotch could dull. He could almost feel Ren's hand cup the back of his neck as it had done so many times before. It was too much; horrible to think about Rey having someone when he didn't, when he couldn't, and just as terrible to contemplate what a bitter old crow that made him.

“Yes, I’ll be in contact,” Hux managed to get out around the tightness of his throat. He was losing his composure as the reality of what he had agreed to finally hit home. He didn’t wait for formalities and hung up, ignoring the tremor in his grip. He would regret his rudeness later, but when he pulled the phone from his ear, the contacts list was still open. It took only a moment to call Phasma.

He'd been pacing the entirety of the call with Rey, forcibly reminded as he went room to room that his house was a mess, he was a mess. He couldn't believe he had let himself get into such a state. He could hear his father's condescending tone as if he were right there beside Hux. He shouldn’t be babbling half drunk to a co-worker, he should be taking all of this like a man. He needed to pull himself together.

He was just about to hang up and spend the rest of the morning examining his multitude of personal failures in silence when Phasma answered, a murmured “Hux?” her only greeting. Unlike Rey, her voice was still deep and scratchy with sleep, and Hux felt all the worse for it. He ought to hang up now, pretend it had been a misdial, but it would be a disservice to Phasma if he had awoken her for nothing.

“Phasma? I think… I shouldn’t be alone today.”

  
**10:04 October 5th, 2009** **  
** **Manchester, Connecticut**

**Hux Residence**

Phasma’s knock was familiar, a steady three beat rhythm that always stood out to Hux. Rappings in a pattern of three meant the demonic in parapsychology, but as Hux undid the latch and chain on his door, he wouldn’t have cared at all if Phasma had grown horns overnight or her eyes turned black. She was impeccably dressed, hair styled, perfume soft but pervasive. She held a drink carrier with two Starbucks cups in the front, and a small brown bag pushed close to the cups, no doubt containing some breakfast fare.

“I could kiss you,” Hux said as he moved back to let Phasma into the spacious front room.

“You couldn’t reach and I’m out of your league.” Phasma replied briskly. There was no entryway or tiny hallway like some people in the neighborhood had, and she stepped inside straight to the living room, her heels comfortingly noisy. 

Hux didn’t miss the way her eyes widened just a fraction as she took in the state of Hux’s often orderly house. It was a new house in a new development, tastefully decorated. The crisp white walls, vaulted ceilings and polished wood floors remained the same as when she'd last seen them, but the handcrafted maple furniture and soft whites and greys of everything else did nothing to obscure the riot of unruly black wires, tripods, recorders, and dozens of other bulky devices designed for function rather than form. Blinking monitors demanded attention. Though Hux insisted on a tidy investigation, the wealth of equipment was never unobtrusive. In his own home, it was downright garish.

However, Phasma didn’t ask questions. She simply stepped over the wires and around the equipment to set down the drinks and food on the glass topped coffee table, one of the few empty surfaces left before turning to switch on the overhead light. The sun shone through the windows, but only where curtains parted, and as the overhead lights came on, Hux was forced to confront, once again, the full scope of the mess he had made. He sat on the sofa opposite Phasma, unwashed and sallow skinned, smelling of liquor, biting back a thousand incomplete excuses.

“Want to start from the beginning?” 

Hux carefully worked the cup marked ‘Hucks’ out of the drink carrier, popping the lid off and smelling the strong cinnamon mocha before tasting it. “Do I start with telling you I think my dead husband is haunting me, or that I just made an ass of myself to his cousin?”

Phasma reached for her coffee, taking a long drink that left a lipstick stain on the white plastic lid before setting it down. Hux feigned interest in his own sugary salvation, but he couldn't help peering at her through his lashes. He'd never spoken to her in depth about Ren's disappearance, and he was well aware of the tenuous legitimacy of his employment at the school. Phasma was in no such position - she was tenured. She had every reason to think he'd finally cracked.

“I was going to start with the nearly empty bottle of scotch on your counter. But start with the cousin. You make an ass of yourself to most people, so that one should be easy to solve.” Her face had the careful mask of a person who was trying not to ask too much, too quickly. 

Hux felt the knot in his stomach loosen slightly, though shame colored his cheeks as he followed Phasma’s line of sight to the bottle of scotch sitting uncapped in the kitchen. “You know I’d usually argue, but I’ve proven your point rather neatly this morning.” He took another gulp of coffee to fortify himself before he continued, dropping his gaze to the safety of his own lap. “I don’t suppose you know that Rey Skywalker is Kylo’s cousin?”

Phasma shrugged one elegant shoulder, glancing to the side in concentration, probably accessing memories of a hundred past conversations with Hux. “The name is familiar. Remind me who they are?”

“She's a medium, like Kylo was. Fairly well-known in the field, in fact. That particular talent seems to run in the family. She's the one leading the Danvers investigation. I have no idea if she convinced them to let her do it out of sentiment, or if this a sick publicity stunt.”

“That's rather uncharitable of you.”

Hux glanced up from frowning at his inseam to find Phasma raising an eyebrow at him. He cleared his throat, abashed. “I'm aware. I just…” He paused, clicking his tongue in annoyance. “I find it barbaric that reopening this case was even suggested, especially to her. Young amateur enthusiasts often have more bravado than brains, but I expected more from her.”

If Phasma had anything to say about that, she didn't share, instead leaning forward to sort through the paper bag with an air of nonchalance. “You should eat. I brought danishes since I assume you haven’t.” The paper bag rustled as she withdrew a fruit danish for herself, letting Hux sulk. A crumb bounced unnoticed off her neatly creased slacks and under Hux's sofa as she ripped a piece off and popped it in her mouth. Gesturing with the rest of the pastry, she swept a half circle around them, indicating the mess Hux had made of his house. “And all of this is related to your decision to join her investigation? Or is this the dead husband haunting part.”

Hux hung his head, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, his head was pounding. “...No. I told you I’m making an ass of myself over all this." He finally looked up and forced his back straight. “Last night, I'd say around one am, an EMF detector went off in storage.”

“And what does that indicate? What is an EMF, exactly?”

Hux couldn’t be sure if Phasma was giving him a place to explain the situation for his own comfort, or if she genuinely didn’t know about paranormal energy fields. He suspected both.

“Electromagnetic Field Detectors are commonly used devices within my field. Generally, they indicate the presence of anomalies. I’d say eighty-five percent of the time we record an apparition, or any other paranormal event, there's a spike in the electromagnetic field. When… When my husband and I hunted ghosts, we would carry them on us at all times. If it helps, think of it as a geiger counter for the paranormal.”

“Got it. So, last night, your ghost detector goes off?” Phasma asked, taking a sip of her coffee. It was a rare pleasure that Hux spoke to people like Phasma; she sat patiently, giving Hux room to explain himself without assumptions.

“It didn’t just go off. It maxed out its meter. I’ve only seen that in one or two other sites that were notable for their field readings. I know that equipment, I took it apart and tested it over and over again after the anomaly had ended, there was nothing wrong with the-”

“What was the anomaly?” Phasma cut Hux off, looking at him intently as she leaned forward, coffee forgotten in hand.

“I don't know. After I retrieved the device, while it was still going off, I didn’t know what to do. I said Ren’s name. As soon as I did, everything went silent.” Hux looked down again, remembering the way the sudden silence had pressed in on him. “In paranormal research, that would have been classified as a response to external stimuli. That's rare.”

“So you think it your husband's ghost? I trust your judgment, it's your field, but you know I don’t believe in spirits.”

“I didn’t used to…”

Phasma snorted, incredulous. “You married a medium. You teach a class on ghost hunting-”

“Parapsychology.”

“-so what happened to change everything?”

Hux took a long breath. He still wondered himself what had happened, when he had finally become an earnest believer. Was he simply allowing his loneliness to override his reasoning?

“I don’t think the paranormal is unexplainable. Today's scientists look down on the alchemists of the fifteenth century as a group of dabbling mystics, but their work was the foundation of modern chemistry. Their tools were just… Rudimentary. As are ours. Kylo and I had differing methods, but we wanted the same thing from our research. We had high hopes that the Danvers investigation would provide solid, undeniable, measurable data.”

"And? What went wrong?"

“Everything.” Hux began, feeling tired and worn thin. He knew he owed Phasma this explanation, but that didn’t mean he had ever looked forward to giving it. “Kylo… How do I put this? He wasn’t always in control of his abilities. He was an empath, or maybe something else. He would get cryptic when he talked about how it worked. I hated that.”

Phasma raised an eyebrow at Hux again and gestured for him to continue with her danish. To anyone else it might have seemed rude, but Hux was well aware that Phasma’s steady indifference was a facade, and one he appreciated.

“The investigation went wrong at every turn. Communications broke down, equipment failed, we had an entire team get lost in one of the far wings,” Hux said, remembering the stress of that night, what an absolute horror show it had been. “I was running myself ragged doing damage control, I didn’t notice what was going on with Kylo. It wasn't really my area besides, we sort of operated as… I suppose it wouldn't be inaccurate to call him a seeing eye dog. He usually lead the way, he could always find anomalies before the equipment did. But I was so busy that night with the equipment, I didn’t notice how he was acting, until...” Hux paused and looked at Phasma meaningfully. “I was angry with him. He was being irrational and I blamed him for ruining footage or audio recordings. It seems so stupid now, but at the time, this had been the biggest moment of our career and he was acting like a child. When he wandered off I didn’t immediately notice. Or care. Not until it was too late.”

Hux stood up then, walking away from Phasma and over to a glass case full of aging books and other antiques. It wasn't quite a curio cabinet given Hux’s clean minimalist aesthetics, but it was as close as he would come. Hux took a small brass key from the top and opened one of the glass paneled doors and pulled out a silver chain, gone tarnished with age and lack of care. From it hung a red gem, shaped vaguely like a long, angular teardrop. It might have fetched a fine price for its high quality and brilliant color, a bright crimson crystal that caught the sun and bounced back fiery orange and yellow glimmers, even covered in dust like it was. Even with the flaws - it was threaded through with hair-thin cracks, like broken glass - it was still beautiful.

Hux brought it back over, holding it out and letting the crystal dangle for Phasma to see.

“It was a gift. From his grandfather, I believe. Anakin Skywalker. He was a prominent medium back in the day. Kylo sort of worshipped the man, said he had spoken with his spirit. As soon as I saw it on the ground I knew something had happened.”

Phasma reached a hand up to cup her palm around the crystal, examining its facets as she turned it left and right. “Was it always broken like this?”

“Since before I knew him. But he was never without it. It was like… Like our wedding ring. He never would have left it behind unless he was under extreme duress. Perhaps not even then. Search and rescue teams, K-9 units, every investigator, all of us looking for him, and in the end this is what we found of him.” Phasma's hand lowered again and Hux held the crystal against his chest, distracted by the past. “We had cameras over so much of the building, so many man hours went into looking for him in the days after. He just… vanished.”   
  
Heavy-hearted, he walked back to the bookcase, looking only briefly at the pendant before returning it to its resting place inside the locked cabinet. He knew Phasma was giving him space, a moment to catch his breath before he turned back around. Squaring his shoulders, Hux put on his best face. He turned to face her, emotions locked up as securely as the pendant.   
  
“So. Back to the matter at hand,” Phasma prompted. “This... event last night, it encouraged you to give the Danvers investigation another go? Even though you think it's tacky? What are you hoping to find?”

He scowled at Phasma for the 'tacky' comment, though without bite. “I honestly don't know which would be worse.” He reclaimed his seat on the sofa opposite her. “Either he gives me a sign that his spirit lingers there, which allows me to prove the paranormal at the cost of confirming my husband is dead and lost to me forever, or I find nothing and prove nothing except that I’m competent at wasting time and money while humoring a naive young woman for a publicity stunt.”

“And not yourself? Why do you think it's a publicity stunt and not simply a family member looking for answers? That's what you would be doing there.”

“So you think I should go?”

Phasma shifted, crossing her legs as she thoughtfully polished off the remainder of her breakfast. In the brief pause, Hux picked a danish for himself from the bag.

“I think you'd be a fool to let someone else attach their name to Danvers,” Phasma finally replied, forgoing subtlety. “But more than that, I hope you'll be able to get some closure either way. You spend your days alone with a cat and a bunch of malfunctioning equipment, teaching a class you hate.”

Hux winced around his mouthful of sweet cream and bread. He swallowed with difficulty, unable to find a counterpoint. She was right. “I guess I... part of me always hoped he was alive, somehow. Maybe one day he would wander back. But if that were true... If he were alive, if he just ran away, that would mean he grew so tired of me and our life together that he simply walked out and left me to hang. All these years wasted chasing after shadows when the truth was just that he couldn't stand me…” 

He drew a shuddering breath, ashamed of the way his eyes burned wetly in front of Phasma. So much for keeping a good face. She said nothing, only waited, and he appreciated her all the more. Her silence was the reply he needed.

“You're right. I need closure. I want to find evidence of him there. Physical or metaphysical, anything to prove that he's really gone. I need to know.”


	4. Young Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux meets the Rebel Paranormal team and brings offerings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the chapters are suddenly getting a lot longer, this one is positively massive! But I hope you guys like the longer chapters and enjoy getting to see some more of the past playing out. 
> 
> As always, this chapter wouldn't exist without Eighth_Chiharu(Lana) and Arkaniis. If you catch an amazing detail, a tidbit of subtle emotion, or think the opening of this chapter is amazing, its all Lana!

**12:15 October 10th, 2009** ****  
**Hartford Connecticut** ****  
**Downtown Library** ****  
**  
**Hux climbed the library stairs quickly, taking them two at a time, well aware he was late. The drizzling October rain and sudden cold snap had made the roads slick and traffic bad, as if it wasn’t in poor enough form on his part to have contacted Rey so close to the investigation when she had first e-mailed him to ask in July. But it was too late for those regrets now; as Hux finally exited the stairwell on the third floor, perspiring beneath his overcoat and sweater, he could see the conference room Rey had booked for the afternoon meeting at the other end of the floor.

He hurried along the blue industrial carpet, past study desks and metal shelves filled with nonfiction books, clutching his leather briefcase and his old computer bag and wondering yet again if it had been a good idea to bring the information he'd kept from the first investigation. It wasn’t much, it was outdated, and half of it was old media files trapped on his ancient laptop. But he knew Danvers, and it was very likely he had one of the most complete maps available of the building prior to its remodel. What he wouldn’t have given back then for someone with a map.  
  
He went to the door, put his hand on the knob, and paused. He could hear laughter behind the frosted glass, animated chatter still audible despite the soundproofing, like a television on low volume in another room. The people in there were much younger than he was. More, well, mercenary. Did he really want to go through this all over again? Dig up all the pain he kept trying to bury? Did he really want to be involved?

No. But if there was any possibility of finding even a hint about what happened to Kylo, he had no choice.

He pushed the narrow door open, trying to keep it that way with his bags bulking out his personal space, and the talking stopped. Someone grabbed the door on the other side and held it wide. Hux murmured embarrassed thanks into the silence, and struggled to the long table in the middle of the room, purposely not meeting anyone's eye. He dropped his heavy laptop onto an empty chair, his satchel onto the table’s smooth, worn surface, and finally looked up at the group seated around one end of the table, best professional First Day of Class smile pasted thinly on his face.

"Hello. Apologies for my tardiness, I'm --"

"Hux!" Rey leapt at him as if she'd been waiting to do so, throwing her arms around his waist and hugging him so hard he thought his spine might crack. "You made it!"

* * *

_ "No backing out now, right?" Rey winks and jabs Hux in the side with a sharp sixteen-year-old elbow. She's tiny and skinny and has more eye shadow than any child should wear outside of a costume party, but she's smiling so happily that Hux can't do anything besides smile right back, just as widely. _

_ He has to tease her, though, just a little. "Shouldn't you be bothering Kylo? He is your cousin, after all." _

_ Her grin doesn't falter. She pushes her long brown hair back and wiggles her fingers in a 'come here' gesture. "He told me to help you. Said you always do your tie wrong. Let me see it, I'm good with stuff like that." _

_ He glances at his tuxedo one more time in the mirror before turning toward her. He leans down, and she slips her small warm hands under his chin, practically glowing as she tugs at his black bow tie. "I'm so glad you guys are finally doing this! It's gonna be so amazing!" _

* * *

"I'm so glad you're here!" She hugged him one more time, apparently for good measure, then stepped back, one arm still around his waist. "You guys, this is Armitage Hux, which you all know, but I'm being formal so just deal. Okay, that's Rose."

The young woman who'd held the door smiled and thrust out her hand. She was as tall as Rey - which meant short - and a bit heavier, her black hair just long enough to form a ponytail in the back, but not long enough for the front to join in. "Hi. So great to meet you. I'm not gonna gush, but it's great. Great to have you."

That voice. He knew that voice -- oh. The phone. Rey's ignored lover. Roommate?

"Anyway, thanks for coming." Her hand was calloused and dry, and she shook like she meant it.

"Thank you for having me," Hux said, glancing from Rose to Rey and back, curiosity piqued.

"That's Finn," Rey continued, indicating a young man at the table. "He's new, but he's really into it. Right, Finn?"

"Absolutely." Finn stood up from his corner seat and took his turn shaking Hux's hand. He was almost as tall as Hux, with dark skin, close-cropped hair, and a friendly grip. "Didn't know about any of this stuff until I met Rey. When someone tries to cheat off your math test using mind-reading, you kinda get interested, y'know?"

"I did not!" Rey laughed, then looked at Hux, face comically serious. "I didn't, you know it doesn't work like that."

"I remember," Hux said, taken aback.

"Cheater," Finn insisted, grinning.

"Total cheater," Rose agreed.

Rey snorted. "You guys are making a terrible impression. Be quiet." She gestured to another man across the table from Hux, this one a little older, regarding Hux seriously. "This is Poe."  
  
This man, Hux knew. They had history. They'd never been rivals the way Kylo and Poe had, but because of Hux's proximity to Kylo, Poe had always had some inane need to rib Hux at every opportunity. It didn't help that the man had an approach to the paranormal that was the exact opposite of Hux's.

Poe stood up and lazily offered Hux a hand, and for the briefest of moments Hux thought maybe things could be professional between them, perhaps even amiable.

“Hugs! It's been ages!”

Hux soured as Poe laughed. “It's Hux, as you are well aware, Dameron.”  
  
Rey cleared her throat and gave Poe a look that had him throwing up his hands in mock annoyance. “I didn’t say anything!”

"Let's just sit," Rey suggested. The others reclaimed seats that had papers in front of them, or jackets draped over the backs. Rey patted the chair beside hers. "I saved this for you." 

Hux slid his coat off, draping it over the proffered chair, feeling the outsider once again. He sat and pulled his briefcase closer, unlatching it. “I’d like to say 'I’m looking forward to this investigation', but we’ll settle for 'I’m looking forward to working with your team'.” 

Rey winced at that. “Well, we’re glad you’re here, Hux.” 

So was Rose, if the way she leaned over the table was any indication. Despite her assurances about not gushing, she was clearly a bit star struck. She pulled out a paperback copy of Hux’s book. The spine was broken, pages dog-eared, frayed and thumbed-over and puffed up with wear, brightly colored tabs sticking out of the thing at all angles. “We were actually just discussing your book! Well, more using it since it's about the same location, but Rey told you that. We’ve been going off of it to try and lay out our investigation. It's fascinating, and so informative.”  
  
Hux shifted uncomfortably, more at the thought of someone having read his account of that night so many times that the book had taken on such a beat-up appearance. Rose noticed his fidgeting and glanced down at her copy, blushing. Damn it, he hadn't meant to make her feel badly about it.

“Ahh… would you like me to sign it?” Hux asked, seizing on the first idea he had to try and bridge the awkward moment. As soon as the words fell out of his mouth, he realized that was worse than almost anything else he could have said. He was about to retract the statement when Rose lit up, thrusting the book forward.

“Please? I would love that! This is the book that got me interested in ghost hunting!” 

Her bright tone was baffling, as was the fact his book had gotten her involved in anything. He felt like it couldn’t have been out long enough to influence anyone, could it have? But Poe was barking with laughter, leaning over to Finn, and Hux was sure he was missing something.

“If you’re wondering, Hugs is always like this,” Poe said to Finn. Clearly there was a friendship between the two men, one that allowed Poe to run his mouth about someone Finn had just met. “It’s his natural charm.”

Hux rolled his eyes as he took the book, fishing a pen out of his briefcase. “Glad to see you’re still the same Poe I recall from uni.” 

He flipped open the book’s cover, surprised at the front page. It bore a doodle of a sheet ghost, and the words _ ‘It’s real to me. -Rey’. _ Hux paused and looked at Rey, who had suddenly turned away to chasten Poe. It was sometimes easy to forget he wasn’t the only one who had lost someone that night. He signed the front page beneath Rey's note before handing the book back.  
  
He nodded at Rose’s effusively sincere thanks and pulled his reading glasses from his breast pocket, sliding them on. The last few years spent hunched over desks grading papers hadn't been kind to his eyes, but now his glasses were part of a mental routine that meant it was time to get down to business. 

“I imagine you’ll have a floorplan of the building showing all the remodeling done? And a plan of investigation?” Hux asked, drawing Rey’s attention back. 

“Oh, yes! We have the maps provided by the University of Massachusetts! You know, since they own the place and had it all redone, they were totally on board with giving us the new layout. We’ve been marking it with areas of interest.” 

As she spoke, Rey pulled from a messenger bag a rolled-up builders map of the former hospital, now turned academic building. She unfurled it across the table, and Hux saw it had been pinned behind a clear plastic overlay, which in turn was scribbled on in dry erase marker. Some of the symbols and lines were new and bright; others had turned dry and powdery, scratched off in a few places, barely legible enough to be of use.  
  
He stood and leaned over the table to get a better view, examining the map, absorbing it. The exterior walls looked identical to what he remembered, and a few features remained the same, mostly in the Kirkbride central building, but the truth was, the interior was nearly alien to him in layout. And if it was alien to him, he could only imagine what Rey’s team was going through, trying to tie this layout to the original blueprints.

“I think I have something you’ll appreciate,” Hux said. He reached inside his briefcase and pulled out a folded piece of paper, yellowed with age along the folds, stained with a dark ring from a coffee cup. 

* * *

_“Really, Ren? This is our only copy!” Hux protests, pulling the offending cup of cheap gas station joe off of the map spread across the command hub’s table. _

_ “What are you talking about? I saw half the interns walking around with copies.” Kylo takes his cup back from Hux, far too nonchalant and unapologetic considering what he's almost ruined. _

_ “Ren, the interns are carrying around a printout I made for pennies at the library. What you were using as a coaster is the master copy. This one is the most complete map available of the entire structure, because it's the one I have been painstakingly drawing by hand, and am still finding requires edits despite that,” Hux snaps, gingerly employing napkins to mop up the coffee ring without blurring his ink lines. _

_ Kylo sets his coffee down, this time on a more appropriate surface, and goes to Hux, putting his hands on the other's hips and turning Hux to face him. His husband invades his personal space, pressing his long nose against Hux’s neck. _

_ “That's not how an apology works, _ darling_.” Hux presses his hands flat against Kylo’s chest, intent on shoving him away, but the feeling of Kylo’s pecs moving under his palms stays him. Kylo takes advantage of his hesitation to lean in, trying to nip at his ear. _

_ “All right, off!” _

_ Kylo groans as Hux shoves him away. Inspired to generosity, he picks up his coffee and offers it to Hux, who takes it more eagerly than he had Kylo’s advances. _

_ “Forgiven?” Kylo purrs, making his voice deeper, sultry and teasing at the same time. _

_ Hux arches a single unimpressed brow at him as he sips the coffee, then turns back to his work. “Still not an apology.” _

* * *

Rey watched curiously as Hux carefully unfolded the paper, treating the soft edges and creases with extra gentleness, until finally a map half the size of the table was revealed.

Instantly, Rey and her team were on their feet, leaning in, jostling each other as they drank in every detail. Even Poe was studying the map, shoulder to shoulder with Finn, though his expression said he was trying not to seem too eager. 

“I saved this just in case. Consider it a peace offering?” Hux asked, giving Rey a shy look. He pushed his briefcase to the side so the map could be laid out flat.

Rey shook her head, delighted. “You didn’t need an offering… but Hux, this is amazing! We haven’t been able to find any floor plans besides -” 

“The 1887 plans? They started closing wings in the ‘70s, so there was never a need for a new, comprehensive floor plan. I know full well how unimaginably frustrating it is, trying to find a map of the place.”  
  
“What are these markings here? None of this is on the ‘87 map!” Finn asked excitedly as he reached out, tracing along a portion of the map.

“That, Finn, is a 1950s remodel. The structure was completely changed in that portion.” 

“And what are these marks? Cameras?” Rose asked next.

For a moment Hux felt more in his element, a halfway between teaching and the familiarity of poring over maps to plan an investigation. “Actually, those marks indicate recorders. At the time we couldn’t afford enough cameras to canvas the building. We had to prioritize. To fill in the gaps, we set up tape recorders to try and capture audio evidence instead. Danvers has a reputation for its EVPs.”  
  
“Thankfully we won’t have that problem. I think we’ve got more cameras than we know what to do with.” Rey’s voice had a nervous note to it and Hux paused, still pointing at one of the recorders’ locations. She had the decency to blush before she added, “Hux…. This investigation. Well, it’s been paid for.”  
  
Hux nodded curtly, adjusting his reading glasses. “I’m well aware. I do actually watch television.” He remembered the first time he had seen the commercial play for the Travel Channel’s ‘Halloween All-Night Paranormal Special’, or whatever the studio executives had garishly branded it. “What of it?”

Finn gave a nervous laugh, looking between Rey and Hux, and mouthing rather obviously to her, ‘_he doesn’t know_?’

Rey worked the modern map of Danvers out from under Hux’s, placing it on top of his, and waited. 

Now that he wasn’t as nervous, he noticed dozens of rooms, and more importantly the former mortuary, full of red triangles. Written beside them were two- or three-digit numbers, and something that looked like timestamps. “What are those?” he asked suspiciously, peering at them. They were everywhere, peppered throughout a large chunk of the building.  
  
“Uhh… Look. No one likes this. We have to put up with those jokers at the network, and some compromises had to be made,” Poe said, his arms crossed over his chest.

Hux stared at him before turning back to Rey.

She put her hand across Hux’s own. “They’re funding everything. We had to agree to allow a special effects team in, to make things interesting and make sure that viewers keep watching. The events are at scheduled times and in areas we picked out.”

“Oh, like the morgue? You just gave them that one?” Hux asked, his voice strained.

“We didn’t have a choice! We’ll still be able to investigate properly, we’ll know exactly when and what special effects they’re doing. This is the only way we could do an investigation.”

Instantly his thoughts flew to the worst possible idea. Hux looked at the rest of the Rebel team, all of them holding their collective breath, waiting for his answer, and he knew he’d ruined things. He was the one who’d complicated everything. He’d written and then allowed himself to be bullied into publishing the book, and now it meant the only way to find out what happened to Kylo was to jump through all three rings of a media circus. He couldn’t let them put on their puppet show with his --

“They’re not allowed to use him…!”

“They won’t!” Rey squeezed his hand. “They won’t, Hux, I would never.”

Hux felt the hot pain fade into cold resolve. He had to calm down. If he left now, if he stormed out, he might never get another chance at closure. He couldn’t let this slip away. But that didn’t mean he had to roll over like a dog.

“I want you to understand… if I find out they’re tampering with the actual investigation, or using any part of Kylo, anything he left behind, or they try and… and…” Hux broke off and took a shaky breath. The idea of them faking the presence of Kylo’s spirit was as sickening as stringing his body up like a museum piece. “Just know, I will shut the entire investigation down. I’ll bury it in so much red tape, they’ll never get it on the air.”  
  
Rey met his gaze and nodded solemnly. “He meant a lot to me, too. I won’t let him be used. I know it hurts -”

Hux yanked his hand from Rey’s as if burned. She’d been rubbing her thumb across his palm. She was reading him. He stepped back and shoved his hands into his pockets. “That’s enough dramatics. If I have your assurances, we’ll proceed. Tell me what your plan is, every last detail. I want to know exactly how much of a mess your sponsors are making of this.”

Rey looked like she wanted to say more, but Finn cleared his throat softly, and she didn’t push.

Finn pulled out a dry erase marker and uncapped it, glancing at Hux. “Well, uh, like Rose said, we’re glad you’re here. We’ve placed the film crews, but other than that, we got stuck trying to plot out all the places you touched in the original investigation.”

Rose opened her book and pulled out a copy of the 1887 map on regular letter-sized paper. The colorful tabs not only marked pages, but also had tiny notes printed on them, and even more tabs were stuck to the small map. “We tried to copy the locations from your book but…. Some of it didn’t fit? We couldn’t even match it to this map, the one from just after it was built.”

Hux eyed the large plastic-protected map, mentally comparing it to his own. His was hidden beneath theirs, but he’d memorized it long ago, and immediately grasped the most obvious conflicts. This at least he could handle. He banished his messy emotions, focusing on the current problem. Maps and scheduling were unfeeling and complicated in a way Hux liked.  
  
“Tell me what this means?” Hux pointed to an oddly-shaped green line on the plastic.

Finn was quick to reply. “Ah, yeah, anything in green is where placement didn’t really work out -”

Rose glanced at the note on the map and hurriedly opened her book. ““It says page 174. Let’s see... Here it is. ‘14:20pm. Thannison called over the radio, requesting back up to the third floor, ward J... Thannison and his small team were setting up recorders marked 33 through 47’, ... Ah! Here.” Rose ran her finger under each line of text as she read aloud.

“The door was unusual and did not match the other doors in the ward, lacking bars, windows, or other safety features besides its own solid steel metal construction. It was unlisted on the map and would not open with any of the keys given to me by the head of security. Thannison thought it might be of note, and to my surprise, Ren was quick to agree. Thannison, Ren, and the remaining three team members could not open the door under combined effort. After a radioed request, the construction team arrived an hour later. With their tools, the door was forced open. Inside was a room clearly designed for solitary confinement, including a straight jacket Ren felt drawn to.”

Hux grimaced and nodded once in understanding. “You’re saying you can’t locate the former solitary ward.”

Rose and Finn nodded back.

Hux held out his hand, and Finn passed him the marker. Hux used two fingers to erase the green line and began counting down the patient dorms. When he got to the fifth one, he circled it. “It was placed near the stairs, probably for the extra sound-proofing and ability to quickly bring up patients. It wasn’t padded. It was tiled, with a drain in the center of the floor. I imagine the construction crews thought it was a bathroom.”

Everyone leaned in to read the small print inside the ward. Sure enough, in the modern layout it was, in fact, a bathroom.  
  
Hux shook his head. If that didn’t set the tone for the entire appalling spectacle this investigation was proving to be, nothing else would. He capped the marker and set it on the table. “What's your plan, overall? I can plot these locations all day, but you’re going to run into the same issues we did the first time: one medium and 70,000 square feet.”  
  
“That's where we’re leaning heaviest on your book,” Rey said. “My goal is to capture as much evidence as we can, and we already know from your account the hot spots Kylo was drawn to, so in essence, we’ll just retrace Kylo’s steps, not waste time on the other areas. The special effects are spaced out right now, but we'll tighten them up as soon as we have a better idea of where we're going.”  
  
It wasn’t much, but Hux supposed it wasn’t bad either. It was where he would have started his own planning. ‘Started’ being the key word. “I assume, then, the crews are just going to go about the investigation as per usual? Monitoring readings and cameras? Leave the spiritual to you?”

“Actually,” Rose said, glancing at Rey with eyes so loaded with devotion that Hux almost gagged, “That’s partly my job, too. I’m no medium, but Rey’s been teaching me things. I’m going to be conducting spirit board sessions in some of the far wings. And the morgue.”

Hux studied the modern map. He wasn’t surprised in the least to see the morgue had been turned into a server room. “Well, don’t sound too eager. I can’t imagine there are body slabs still down there.”

“No, but it's still worth investigating!”

“Have you seen the new room? With all those computers, I can’t imagine there will be much room for anything besides a Hasbro ouija board.”  
  
Rose beamed, excited. “Actually, it’s completely open! We got a small tour of it back in July. The original floor tiles are still in place, but the servers won’t go in until later this year.”

“We’ve got special permission to be in just before the final renovations happen!” Finn added, just as revved up as Rose. “So, the power is on, but no servers, no decorations or furniture yet. There’s tons of room!”

“I think the Travel Channel paid them off, or made some kinda deal to delay the final renovations until we we’re finished.” Poe spoke up this time, smiling along with Finn and Rose at the prospect of getting special access to the building.

The energy of all these bright, young, eager investigators was infectious, their optimism contagious. Despite everything, Hux wanted to help, not just for himself, but for them. It was a double-edged sword, remembering what it felt like to be in love with the paranormal and ghost hunting. To share that love with his husband, to hold hands as they paced a perimeter, to celebrate a particularly successful hunt with a kiss. He had enjoyed every second of the process, but all of it was inexorably tied to Kylo and Kylo was gone.  
  
“So, Hux, um, what do you think?” Rey asked.

The question pulled him out of his thoughts, for which Hux was grateful. “Yes. Well, it seems like you’ve got the general plan of attack. I’m still curious about the morgue though. Rose just said she’ll be leading a spirit board session there, but the map has a special effects team there, too.”

“Yeah, that’s part of the show. For the camera’s sake, they’re going to create an anomaly to draw us into the room, Rose will conduct the spirit board session -”

“And when I ask for a sign, a piece of furniture will move,” Rose finished, cutting Rey off, though Rey seemed used to it and not at all upset about Rose jumping in.  
  
“Heavy handed, isn’t it?” Hux asked, but he wasn’t too upset. It made sense. After all, hadn’t they done the exact same thing back then? Their team had put on theatrics, too, excitedly chattering about uploading the content to the internet, watching the view count tick upward as they discussed plans for the next site.

“Heavy handed,” Poe agreed, “but if we do capture anything in the morgue, we’ll at least know what sounds were planned and which weren’t.”

Hux shot him a withering look. “Knowing which sounds are planned doesn’t automatically make other sounds paranormal. We didn’t have special effects crews to tamper with our set up, and we still couldn't prove that any noises we heard were paranormal anomalies.”  
  
“But you did hear things? What was it like?” Rose leaned forward in her chair, chin in her hands, face alight with hope. “There’s only one or two pictures of the morgue at all. Do you have audio from the sessions? I’ve been in the room and there aren’t any features left to focus on.”

Hux cleared his throat. Finn and even Rey were looking at him as if wondering if Rose's question was pushing boundaries. Was he that transparent? When had he become so delicate a couple of 19-year-olds looked at him like that?

But he had brought the laptop. He had left the house without it, and gone back twice before giving in, finally slinging the laptop bag over his shoulder and stalking to the car to add it to the briefcase.

“I, ahh… I can… help with that.”  
  
Hux reached over and snagged his laptop bag, and before he could think better of it, lifted it onto the table. Finn moved the maps out of the way as Hux unzipped the bag and pulled out the heavy, aging, gray Dell Inspiron. Hux turned it on, watching as the computer’s screen flickered to life, the mechanical clicks and whirrs coming from it so loud and irregular the thing sounded like its own haunting. It didn’t matter, though. Once the Rebel crew heard those first signs of life, they crowded in, chattering over each other, all talking at the same time.

“That thing is a brick! I can’t believe it works, that’s crazy!”

“Only you would keep something that oughta been dragged behind a barn and shot.”

“Do you have photos?”

“Photos, forget photos, do you have audio? Are there audio files on there?”

“Is there a lot of data? Wait, can you forward it all? I have a thumb drive in the car, maybe we can dump it!”

They were as excited as his students. He found that despite knowing what he was about to do, and how much it might hurt, he wanted to please them. He could endure it, for their sakes. “I can forward all of this later, but for now, I can do better than photos.”

Hux began clicking through files, dozens and dozens of them, all neatly organized in directories that turned into rabbit warrens of paths and folders. He navigated through years and names until he finally found the one file he wanted, opening the file labeled ‘2300morgue’. The computer chimed, and the Windows Media Player icon filled the screen, floating there for too long as the program struggled to load.

“Would someone mind turning off the lights?” Hux asked.

Finn was quick to jump up and do it, the rest of the Rebel team shifting their seats to move closer to the screen. When the video finally started, Hux expanded it to fullscreen before taking a step back to let the others have the best view. Finn stayed standing, one hand on the back of Rose's chair.  
  
With the room darkened, the only light diffused from the cracks in the door and the small window of frosted glass, the footage could be seen clearly despite the dimly-lit scene. The video camera shook as the person holding it walked with crunching footsteps down a dark hallway, the floor lined with what were probably dirty white tiles, until they reached a metal door that swung open easily beneath their hand. Light exploded silently onto the screen, whiting out the picture. The camera operator didn’t wait in the doorway for the camera to adjust, and the video came back into focus inside a medium-sized room in a state of disrepair. Rectangular, bulky lights on thick stands poured bright puddles of light onto the floor, illuminating water-stained green tiles and several small piles of debris: beer cans, plastic bags, and the green tiles’ less fortunate dislodged brothers, cracked and jagged-edged. The light was strong, but limited. Wherever it couldn't reach remained black on the video, the room's corners hidden in shadow.

A thin woman with sharp cheekbones and a dark coverall looked up as the camera operator entered the room. “Ah, what a pleasure to have you join me,” she greeted teasingly. She stepped away from a white folding table sandwiched between one of the light stands and a couple of tripods. The paperwork, CRT monitor and walkie-talkie cradle on the table's surface denoted it as a sort of miniature command hub.

Rose excitedly pointed. “O-oh look! The tiling is the same -”

“-sshh,” Poe shushed her and leaned in closer, just to poke at the screen himself. “Only two cameras for the entire room?”

“SSHHHH!” Rey and Rose cut him off, the team all settling back in to watch.  
  
“I would hate to think we had kept you waiting, Unamo,” Hux’s voice replied on the video, echoing off the tiled walls.

A tall man with wild dark hair stepped into the frame, his hands shoved into the pockets of black pea coat that swished around his knees as he approached the table.

Rey inhaled audibly.

“Any readings down here?” Kylo asked the woman, and suddenly it was Hux’s turn to hold back a sharp breath. Kylo’s voice stung in a way his image hadn't, maybe because Hux knew about his entrance. He'd been expecting to see him. He'd forgotten about the actual speaking. In his memory, the scene had stopped there, not allowing him to go further. But he had promised himself he would get through this. He was a grown man, he was capable of watching a video without going into vapors. There was also a certain solidarity knowing Rey was going through the same thing, sharing the moment. They'd do this together.  
  
The video had no care for anyone's feelings and continued on, the camera swinging around the morgue in a slow sweep, taking it all in while Unamo and Kylo talked in the background.

“Nothing too unusual. The EMF fields had a spike about an hour ago during a sweep of the tunnels, nothing amazing. I’ve caught two cold spot anomalies from the crematorium area, though. I’ve got those recorded and backed up already.”

“Really? I would have bet on hot spots.” Kylo’s voice again.

"I can understand that, I might've felt the same way except for the primary readings. When we configured the infrared for --"

"This is fascinating," Hux's voice interrupted dryly as the camera circled around to where Unamo and Kylo were standing, "but we're on a schedule. We already did the preliminaries, tell me about the EMF spike."

Kylo shrugged one shoulder. Unamo nodded, smirking. "This way, then. The strongest point was down here; get this, surrounding an old gurney."

The video froze, eliciting a wordless exclamation from Finn, but the old computer was only buffering. The footage resumed, suddenly jumping into the new scene as it caught up, this one of bare cement corridors. The camera was shaking again, following Kylo and Unamo, the beam of Unamo's flashlight bobbing along at their feet as they made their way into the tunnels. There was no immediate end in sight. The darkness before them gaped open like an inky black veil, obscuring whatever lay beyond.  
  
“Bit cliché isn't it? A creepy gurney in a morgue?” Unamo asked.

“It's a cliché for a reason,” Kylo groused, his dark hair and black coat almost blending in with the shadows. He was barely in the frame, the space between him and Unamo growing, darkness yawning before them.

“She has a point, but I think I'll consider myself grateful for a measure of predictability in my anomalies,” Hux’s voice said from behind the camera. “If the ghosts don’t leave us clues, we won’t have much of a job.”

Suddenly, Unamo rushed ahead into the darkness. “Ah! Here it is!”

Kylo quickened his stride, his long legs eating up the distance, and the camera bounced erratically as Hux jogged to keep up. By the time the violent shaking stopped, the camera had drawn even with Unamo’s flashlight, though the latter was now on the floor. Kylo and Unamo were spotlighted by it as they lifted a much-abused gurney up off its side, setting it down on its ancient wheels. They nudged it experimentally, apparently not noticing when it gave an awful, rusted screech. The wheels spun relatively freely, however, and after looking it over and rolling it back and forth a few times, the old casters shrieking in protest, Kylo jumped recklessly onto the thing, stretching out on his back, his long gangly limbs everywhere.

“What do you think?”  
  
“I think you need a more recent tetanus shot to be doing that,” Hux’s voice said as he walked closer to the gurney. The camera hovered over Kylo’s face, pulling into a close-up while Kylo smiled mischievously, hair fanned out around him.

“I meant for the seance.” Kylo reached up and took the camera, blurring the shot, and then Hux was in the frame and scowling.  
  
“Oh! It's you!” Rose whispered to Hux, leaning back in her chair, head tilted back to peer at him upside down.

“Had you not realized?” Hux whispered back, unconsciously crossing his arms the same way he was in the footage. "That was my voice this whole time."

The 28-year-old on the screen was standing the same way Hux was, but he was thinner than present-day Hux. In the darkness of the tunnel, his hair still glowed a bright coppery red, with no hint of silver at his temples to dilute the color. He was cocky in a way the older Hux was not, confidently bossy without the veneer of icy aloofness. He was… warm.

”You mean you want to hold the seance over the gurney?” the younger Hux asked. The camera turned away from him to study the darkness that surrounded the small group. His voice continued though he was no longer in the frame. “You said you had an EMF spike near this table?”

The camera swung to Unamo, still a few feet away, who nodded and pulled out her own reader. She moved closer, and the camera tilted back until it was facing upwards, capturing both Umano and Hux from an unflattering angle. Unamo leaned over the camera, waving her EMF reader, which clicked and crackled, until it was directly over Kylo and started to emit a steady, high-pitched trilling.

“It's reading at 5.7… 5.8… Ah, it jumped to 6!”  
  
"We'd better document it. We have to finish up in the morgue, and we don't want this to fade out," Hux said. The camera followed him as he walked around the gurney, taking hold of it on one side, his profile in the frame. "We might be able to use this somewhere else, too. Grab the other side, Umano, we need to hurry."

Presumably she did, and also scooped up her flashlight, but only Hux was visible as the video played on. Shadows danced across his pale face and over the tunnel while they walked, the camera much steadier with a gurney to support it. Kylo's voice was louder for being closer to the mic as acting cameraman, and he, Unamo, and the younger Hux animatedly argued over the EMF fields and readings. The sound of the gurney being pushed down the corridor sometimes drowned Hux and Umano out, but they always resurfaced, and the camera never once left Hux's face.

The Rebel team watched the rest of the technical discussion in fascinated silence. The worst of their chattering had ended, and Hux took the chance to pull off his glasses and sag quietly into a chair nearer the wall, the team in front of him. Rose was murmuring to herself, trying to place and transpose as much of the video as she could over the modern layout. Finn had finally taken a seat and he and Poe leaned into each other, shoulder to shoulder without realizing it. They all seemed so innocent, even Poe.

“Give me that.” Hux’s younger self interrupted the conversation on the video to glance down at the camera, a smile hovering at the corner of his mouth. “You’ll run down the battery.”

The file wiggled onscreen and ended. The media player went to black. Rey’s team waited for a heartbeat or two, just in case, and when nothing else happened, they burst into excited back-and-forth, each one exclaiming their ideas. Rose jabbed repeatedly at her book as Finn waved his hands, and Poe tried to talk over both of them.

Only Rey remained quiet. Slowly, she turned in her seat to regard Hux, her brown eyes concerned. He quickly pulled out a reassuring smile. It wasn’t his best attempt, and it didn't feel real enough to convince her, but it was all he could do at the moment. The old footage hurt. Seeing Kylo animated and alive was harder than he’d thought it would be, even after so long. He felt drained.

His smile must have been good enough, though. After all, Rey was young, and it wasn't her husband. She gave a slight nod at his smile and turned back to her team, and soon her voice was just as strident as the others’.


	5. Fox Hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long awaited return and the shadows that linger still at Danvers begin to show themselves.

**08:00 October 31st, 2009** ****  
**Danvers State Hospital** **  
** **Danvers Massachusetts**

The rain came down in a messy drizzle, just enough to slick the road and make driving difficult. Hux’s knuckles were white where he gripped the BMW’s steering wheel, but not from the weather. He hadn’t realized so much tension had built up in his shoulders over the course of the short drive from his hotel to the site of the newly-restored Danvers, not until he had driven into view of the looming building and had to force himself to let go of the wheel so it could turn into the car park.  
  
The blacktop was freshly resurfaced with its hundreds of parking stalls repainted in straight white lines that gleamed in the rain, and it held less than a handful of vehicles. A van with ‘Rebel Paranormal’ plastered on the side over the group’s tasteless orange logo and three or four more normal cars were the only ones, all of them clustered together near the main building, the administration center in the old days. The good news was that the dearth of cars meant the film crews had yet to arrive, so he wasn't late. He guided his blue Cabriolet into a space some distance away from the other cars. Hux supposed it made him look like an antisocial curmudgeon, parking off to the side, but he needed a few moments to himself.  
  
Taking his time, he undid his seatbelt and wriggled his wallet out of his coat. He pulled his Rolex watch from his wrist and his reading glasses from his breast pocket, and stowed the whole lot in the glovebox. Car thieves plundering a glovebox were far less likely than these very necessary items falling from his pockets as he crawled through some dank, cobwebbed tunnel. His wallet and watch couldn’t help him on the hunt. Better not to risk them.

With his belongings safely tucked away, Hux tugged his backpack from the passenger's seat where it slumped against the buttery leather upholstery, so heavy it had twice set off the car’s passenger-side seatbelt alarm. The olive green ALICE pack was ancient, already well-used when he’d purchased it from the army surplus store. It was stained and ripped, the hand-painted logo for ‘First Order Investigations’ all but washed off of the top flap, two of the three compartments patched. He’d dragged the pack from storage when he’d realized none of his leather briefcases would suffice for the job, and out of the shadows it had come, pressed into service once more.

He dug through the bag, going over the contents one last time. His newer laptop, a cheap set of two-way radios, and a pair of flashlights had all been carefully packed in the main compartment, along with their charging bases and power cords. Extra batteries for everything bulged in two of the outer compartments. In the third was his EMF detector, which had somehow never made its way back into storage after the ‘incident’. It was older and at least two models out of date now, but Hux hadn’t chosen the detector for sentimentality. It was his most reliable reader, and besides which, he could probably borrow any of the items he’d packed from Rey and her team, but he had no interest in equipment he hadn’t personally checked every wire of himself, not even a flashlight. Not at Danvers.

Steeling himself, Hux took a deep breath. It was warm inside the car, warm and safe and familiar. He found that he suddenly very much wanted to stay here, but he couldn’t hide forever. He needed to get on with it. Shouldering the pack, he opened the car door and stepped into the rain, getting his first real look at the new Danvers without the rain-splattered windshield to hide it.  
  
The building was beautiful. Hux had to admit he’d always thought so. Sprawling and commanding, its spire reached up and up, seeming to brush at the low, gray clouds that obscured the sun and diffused the morning light. The misting rain and cold temperatures threatened the fun of the night’s trick-or-treaters, the darkness of the dour sky hanging like a black mourning veil across the landscape, but Danvers itself shone, new red brick and fresh paint bright in the borrowed light of the lampposts that lined the walkway, the scoured cement stairs leading up to the entrance sporting polished brass handrails.

Before the narrow double doors to the main entrance stood Rey and her team, themselves and their bags sheltered by the portico, itself bearing a new sign that read ‘University of Massachusetts Danvers’. The doors looked exactly like the ones Hux had seen the last time he was here, and as he drew closer, he saw that they were indeed the same, meticulously sanded and refinished. The University had apparently taken Danvers’ status as a Historic Site seriously. Two years of construction, millions poured into restoring the building and upgrading parts which could not safely be restored, and it seemed no detail had been overlooked. The windows had all been replaced with new double-paned glass, the frames modern vinyl, the head and apron still antique brick. They radiated warm light, proving that the electricity was up and running and ready for them. 

The last time he had been here with Kylo, there were no lights. Most of the windows were black, broken portals, gaping and open to the elements. They’d driven up in a rust red ‘93 Chevrolet Cavalier given to them by Kylo’s father when their old van had died, half their income spent on equipment and leaving too little left over for car repairs. Kylo’s jeans had been over the line of ‘fashionably ripped’ and into downright shredded. Hux had been more hopeful, excited, newlywed and unafraid of the future with Kylo at his side and Brendol recently dead. Now he had fears he never imagined, though he had more in monetary wealth than he could have ever dreamt.

Hux slowed, brow crinkling as he gazed up at imposing visage of the building. A shiver ran up his spine, the likes of which he hadn’t felt before, not even the first time he had seen it. Danvers was a university building now, repurposed for kinder, more academic pursuits, but that didn't change the past. It didn’t matter how many inner walls were knocked down, how many cells became classrooms and lecture halls, how many barns they razed to build modern dormitories. It didn’t matter at all. The world could ooh and ahh all they liked at the expensive restoration of late Victorian innovation, but Hux would never see anything but his husband’s crypt. 

Rey waved, and once again, Hux was struck by how young his cousin-in-law and her team were. Rey was only nineteen, the boy Finn looked barely old enough to drink, and Rose would fit in better at a school club room, passionately defending science or the environment or anime. Poe, the oldest and the same age as Hux, had the same insouciant confidence. He could have as easily been a grad student as a professor. For all his experience, it was clear he had no idea what Danvers was like.

Hux wondered how he looked to them: tired, bags under his eyes, a teacher himself and yet bundled up in a Burbury wool coat and scarf, driving a less than two-year-old luxury car. Surely he seemed too old. Too midlife crisis.   
  
“Hux! Over here!” Rey called, breaking his introspection, waving harder as if he might have somehow missed her. Hux didn’t bother to wave back. The wind blew, the rain already dripping off his coat and wrecking his carefully styled hair, and he hastened to join the others, jogging up the stairs just as Poe pulled open the right-hand door.

They filed into the lobby, wet shoes squeaking on the shiny marble floors. Hux was last to hurry inside, nodding at Poe as he went by. He intended to greet the team and make his manners, but he was caught off-guard by how different the room was. Illuminated by bright modern lights, the plaster restored a clean white, small architectural details and bits of original woodwork made clean and whole, and, most startling, the flag of the University of Massachusetts pinned over the first big archway, fluttering gently alongside the American flag.

* * *

_Kylo sketches a bow and holds the weathered door open, gesturing for Hux to follow the security guard into the shadowed lobby. Hux rolls his eyes and smiles and walks past, ignoring the eyebrow Kylo wiggles at him. The guard has no patience for their play, and continues quickly into the dark, keys jingling. Hux hadn't missed the judgmental look the guard gave them before he unlocked the building, but Hux has dealt with far worse. Unshaken, he follows the guard into the decaying building, Kylo behind him, the door creaking shut. _

_ Even with sunlight streaming through the windows, Hux's eyes are slow to adjust. Compared to the bright crisp morning outside, the interior of the old admin building is a cave, cold and stale in the way abandoned buildings left to the elements often are, but also oddly odiferous. Animals, probably, taking shelter where they can. The molding and baseboards are in a sorry state, and the plaster walls are badly cracked, paint missing in huge chunks. Graffiti covers every reachable inch, a riot of color in the gloom. _

_ “Less than 15 years empty, and look at the state of it," Hux murmurs, reaching out to touch the crumbling, vandalized walls. _

* * *

“Isn’t it amazing?” Rey asked, having seen the way Hux looked around the building. “I imagine it's really different.”  
  
Hux nodded, tearing his gaze from the flag and its trumpeted normalcy. “The last time I was standing here, there was a lot more phallic graffiti on the walls.”

Poe burst out laughing, his voice echoing in the cavernous room. “Who knew Hux could make a joke? Grew a sense of humor, huh?” 

Hux's mouth thinned, but he kept his thoughts locked firmly behind his teeth. No need to encourage Poe. He held a rather formal hand out to his cousin. “Thank you again for inviting me, Rey.”

She took it in both of her own and stepped closer with a meaningful look. “Of course. It wouldn’t be the same without you here.”  
  
That was too much. She was too...

He stepped back after a pause that involved counting heartbeats so he knew when it was acceptable to pull away. At least she didn’t try to hug him again. Rey, for her part, seemed to understand, and didn't show any sign of being offended or hurt by his stiff retreat.  
  
Finn, on the other hand, seemed far too aware of the awkward set of Hux’s shoulders, and gave him an apologetic smile. The boy couldn't possibly have anything to apologize for, which meant everyone on the team was staring at Hux's very obvious discomfort. Hux took in a short, quick breath and deliberately turned away, looking up at the beautiful new ceiling.

“It’s a poor day for fox hunting, but I imagine the film crews will be having a blast with the atmosphere. I’m a little surprised they’re not here yet?” He could see cameras and equipment set up all about the atrium, but there was no sign of the Travel Channel's undoubtedly massive crews. They ought to be here, swarming all over Danvers like worker ants on a corpse. 

Finn blinked. "Fox hunting?"

"Because the rain..." Hux made a face. "Never mind."

“Most of the set up was done last night, they’re getting here around nine, so don’t worry, Hux, you’ll get your chance in front of the camera!” Poe cut in jovially, shifting his own camera equipment bags on his shoulder. “It was a late night. I think you'll be impressed with what was done. One hundred cameras feeding into five command hubs.” 

“Five?” Hux asked, remembering their planning meeting and a more recent video conference only a week ago. "There were four when last we spoke."

Rose nervously stepped in. “Well, the fifth is for the special effects team.” 

“Ah." That one word dripped scorn. "I see. If you’ll mark my map with their location so I can be sure to avoid them? I would hate to interfere with their important work.” 

Rey hastily stepped close again, seizing Hux's arm and linking elbows with him. “Sure we will! But we’ve got an hour before the crews arrive! Would you like to see the set ups?"

He was being managed, but he was willing to go along with it. He was too tired to fight, and besides which, he did want to see how everything was arranged. “I would, actually. Show me.” 

She nodded and gave him a tug towards the stairs. “Perfect! Come on, then!” 

Finn and Poe shared a look before following along after the pair, bags still slung over their shoulders, and Rose bounded up to walk beside Hux and Rey as they climbed up to the second floor. 

The second floor was a large open space that Hux could easily imagine as a study area or meeting place, but at the moment it was empty of anything comfortable or welcoming save its fresh paint and polished floors. Instead, the area had been populated with collapsible tables and folding chairs, thick ropes of wire snaking across the floor to power half a dozen monitors and computers. Three of the tables had been set up in a crescent at the room's center that was almost in a way reminiscent of the building's layout, and every inch of all three was covered in keyboards, cords, laptops, and all manner of devices in a menagerie of gray and black boxes and power cables. 

“So? Not bad, is it?” Poe asked, stepping up to the center table and hitting a few keys on one of the many keyboards. "This is the main command hub. The others report to us here, and we assess and direct the cameras in the field. Us and the Travel bozos, but mostly us."

Hux untangled his arm from Rey’s and came over to look. Suddenly wishing he’d brought his reading glasses after all, he peered at the screens and frowned. “Have these been recording all night?” 

On the main table three monitors had been squeezed together, each displaying ten or more camera feeds, showing empty rooms or corridors. It was a staggering amount of cameras, and on the feeds he could see more equipment in each of the rooms, and now that he was really studying them, he could even see other command centers in the far reaches of certain frames. People were moving about in some of the wards, maybe a handful or two, all of them like busy bees, carrying things to and fro. It accounted for the extra cars in the lot,

Before he could even take in a third of what was on the screens, Poe pulled up a folder, blocking his view. Inside the folder were dozens and dozens of video files, each with hourly time stamps and names to indicate which camera had sourced the feed. 

“Two external terabyte drives' worth of recording since we finished setup last night. Everything is automatically backed up, and interns will be watching the footage after the investigation to see if anything was worth capturing.” He was as proud as if he'd engineered the entire thing himself, which was incredibly doubtful, though Hux could understand it. He'd known that the rebels were granted access to resources and tools he'd never had, but the scale of it was astonishing.

“I assume this is mostly coming from the security system? I'm amazed they gave you a login. Do they know who you are?” Hux asked, sliding into the folding chair in front of the table scrutinizing the files as he absently set his bag aside. 

“Har har, you're gettin funnier by the minute. Yeah, they're mostly from the security cams. There's a few areas the system doesn't monitor, so we had to improvise.”

“I see. A security system with holes, wonderful. The attics and tunnels?” Hux clicked away from the files Poe had brought up, returning to the myriad live camera feeds. He had no interest in skimming through empty footage.

“Attics, yeah, no one's gonna spend money to watch those. They’ve each got two. The tunnels got cameras at the entrances and exits, but not every inch in between. There aren't enough cameras in Massachusetts to cover that much ground.” 

“Then what you mean is, you covered the known entrances and exits.” 

"That's what I said." The silence stretched for a beat, then Poe shifted behind Hux as he grabbed another chair and pulled it up. “We covered what we could. You know half those tunnels are collapsed now.” 

“I’ll accept that much, but those tunnels will never fully be mapped, and who knows how many entrances have been lost. You haven’t covered everything,” Hux replied dryly as he started flipping through each feed. It was startling to look at uncracked modern windows, polished linoleum floors, and bright white walls where once decay, graffiti, and years of trash had made the place so utterly uninhabitable one could hardly believe it had ever been a functioning hospital. 

“Neither did you,” Poe said defensively.

“No, but we didn’t try to make it seem like we did.” Hux flipped faster, then stopped abruptly as something grabbed his eye. “One moment. When was the building unlocked?”  
  
Poe paused again, scowling like Hux’s sole mission on this Earth was to catch him off guard. “Doors were unlocked about thirty minutes before you arrived. Rey got here just a little before you.” 

“And the rest of the building? How long did it take to unlock all the exterior doors?” 

“All the doors? Hux, only the front is unlocked.”  
  
Hux made an impatient noise and maximized the current feed to full screen. The title of the feed was ‘Ground Floor - East Wing 03’, and in the frame an opened door swung in the light breeze, a puddle on the floor glossy and shifting as more rain pattered onto the linoleum.

Poe stared, then called without turning, “...Finn? Rose? You guys know anything about this?" 

The others came around to that side of the table, breaking off their conversations to come and look, all of them staring at the video feed of the softly swaying door. 

“One of the teams must have unlocked it,” Rose said, brows furrowed as Finn said at the exact same time, “Security maybe?” 

“Could we check the security videos?” Rey asked.

Hux and Poe shared a look. 

“Well…. We could,” Hux said. “But unless we know when it was opened…” 

Poe cut him off. “What he’s saying is there's close to sixteen hours of footage to go through, assuming that the door was opened after everyone left and wasn’t opened earlier in the day. We don’t have that kind of time.” 

“Well, why don’t we go see?” Rey asked.

Suddenly Hux remembered exactly how it felt when a Skywalker made a perfectly reasonable request, but his body thought otherwise, goosebumps to chasing across his skin as the hair on the back of his neck prickled to attention. But still he stood and adjusted his coat. He had never run away from a hunt before, and he had no intention of starting now. “You can give me a tour of the renovations while we’re at it. I believe I’m the only one who hasn’t had the pleasure.”  
  
All misgivings pushed aside, Hux felt himself stepping into the familiar role. The rebels were a good team, but they ran on instincts and enthusiasm, and Hux would tolerate no such slacking of command. An open door could disprove a voice phenomenon, the shadows from it swinging could tamper with spectral anomalies. It was slipshod work. Grabbing a spare radio off the desk and checking quickly that it was charged and operational, he strode off toward ‘Ground Floor - East Wing 3’, leaving Rey to catch up to him. 

Together he and Rey made their way through the maze of corridors, walking along the second floor in companionable silence. He hadn’t intended his silence, but the otherwise empty building had a hush about it that felt hard to penetrate beyond the echoing of their own footsteps. 

Hux thought at times he could see bits and pieces of the old Danvers, peeking out through cracks in the facade. The wide windows on the upper floors were almost double the height of a man, and had all been given new glass, but like the ones on the ground floor, had retained their original accents and design. The windows were intended to display nature to the patients, to soothe them with the sun and the green hills, but all they showed now was wet drizzle, misting and gloomy against the windows. He wondered briefly if the building remembered why it had been built as it had. If it remembered itself with the same clarity that Hux did.  
  
It was the long silence that allowed Hux to get lost in his own memories. They reached the penultimate wing of the easterly side of the building and the stairwell down to the first floor. It was repainted and restored as was everything else, and it reminded Hux of stairs he’d seen in other schools and hotels, open at each floor and wide enough for two or three people across. He studied the arched curve of the entryway up to the ceiling ,and his breath caught when he saw them. Small, circular indentations in the plaster where anchors had once been, supporting a chain link fence that had once run right down the center of the entire staircase. 

* * *

_“REN!” Hux shouts, his temper getting the better of him as he runs up to the fencing that divides the stairwell and cranes his neck, trying to peer into the gloom of the partitioned-off patients’ side. _

_ Kylo vanishes into the shadows of the upper floors, his footfalls echoing on the stoneon the steps. _

_ The fencing is fastened ceiling to floor, and despite the rust and decay, is too strong and tall for Hux to get through, as effective a barrier as any plaster or brick wall. He grabs it anyway and yanks at it, rattling it uselessly. _

_ “FINE! Run off and pout!” Hux shouts into the darkness, pushing himself away from the fencing to storm down to the lower floor. He doesn’t have time to chase after Kylo and his melodramatic antics. _

* * *

“Hux?” Rey asked, shaking Hux from his own memories as her hand landed on his back. 

Hux didn’t jump, but he stiffened at the shock of reality. “Oh, sorry… I was admiring the woodwork.” A lie, though as he turned to look at Rey, he found her gaze lingered on the anchor points, and towards the upper floor, unblocked now, but still obscured from their current vantage.

“It’s fine. This place holds a lot of memories, doesn’t it…?”  
  
With that Hux pulled away, getting the feeling Rey knew too much as he started down the stairs. The drip drip sounds of echoing water drowned out Hux’s thoughts as they climbed down to the first floor.  
  
When he turned out onto the landing, Hux would have been disappointed if he had been waiting for something mysterious or otherworldly beyond his own thoughts. The floors were the same polished linoleum, the walls the same crisp fresh white. The only thing out of place was the open door and the puddle in front of it.

As he drew closer, Hux tsked at the footprints leading back into the wing, footprints that never would have stood out save for the polished gloss of the freshly redone flooring. “Sloppy.” 

“What do you mean?” Rey asked, coming to stand beside him. 

“I mean, a crew member did this.” He stepped around the puddle and out the door, into the cold morning air. Rey stood just at the doorway, peering out at the mist-shrouded grounds and watched Hux as he checked the door's lock and mechanisms.

“How do you know that?”

Hux pointed at the ground, and there, propped up against the frame of the door, just tall enough to stop it from closing behind itself, was an old red brick. 

“Oh…” She sounded disappointed. 

Hux gave her a rueful look. “I find ghosts seldom have to prop open doors, but film crews often do just that when they’re out smoking” 

Rey leaned against the door frame with her arms crossed over her chest. She was quiet for a moment, glancing out at the grounds. “Do you…. Think Kylo is still here?” 

His immediate reaction was not kind, and he took a deep breath to steady himself. “Spiritually? Orr…?”

“Spiritually,” Rey replied, stepping out of the doorway to join him on the wet grass.

“I suppose that’s what we’re here to find out. I don’t think that has anything to do with the door left ajar.”

A beat of awkward silence passed, Rey close beside him but unable to look at him, her eyes on the foggy morning, and Hux fiddled again with the lock, though there was nothing wrong with it.

Rey broke first, seemingly unable to handle the awkward tension between them. “How are you doing though, being back here?”

Had she nothing but caring, nosy questions? He didn’t want to have to figure out how to answer her, and more importantly, not answer her. He had his emotions exactly where he wanted them: locked up. “You’re the medium here, I imagine you’re asking because you have an inkling.” 

“Not all mediums are the same,” she said, blushing slightly. “I can’t read your mind.”

“I’m fine, and more than capable of managing myself.”

“That’s not what I -”

Rey’s radio suddenly crackled to life, Poe’s voice filtering through. “Eagle 1 to Psychic Hotline?” 

Despite being flooded with relief at the interruption, Hux scowled at the radio as if Poe were in the room and able to see it. Maybe he’d feel it across the frequencies.

“Rey to Poe. Whats up?” 

“Psychic Hotline, Travel Channel has arrived. They’re setting up and want to get interviews.”

Rey looked up at Hux, her expression pensive as though she wanted to say more, but she held her tongue for the moment. “All right Poe, I’ll be right there.” 

Before she could invite him, Hux said quickly, “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll have a cigarette and tour the grounds, then perhaps the rest of east wing.” 

“...Okay. Don’t get lost?” 

Hux only gave a curt nod before turning his back on her and walking away into the misty morning. 

* * *

_Hux slips out of the empty doorway onto the cracked, weed-choked cement. An intern had spotted Kylo out in the small cemetery, so that’s where Hux is headed. Typical of his husband, brooding somewhere dramatic. It feels like there are a hundred and one tasks to complete, but they’re actually ahead of schedule, so Kylo vanishing like this hasn’t thrown them off. He’s actually picked a convenient time to disappear. _

_ Hux is glad for the unseasonably warm autumn day, though. The interior of the building is still chilly and the air stagnant, but outside the sun warms his skin as he hurries across the overgrown lawn, the knee-high grass becoming denser the further he gets from the main building. _

_ It doesn’t take long to reach the top of the hill, and even in the shade of the unkempt oak trees Kylo is an easy shadow to spot, dressed all in black like an overgrown crow. Meditating by the looks of it. Hux hurries down from the rise of the hill, feeling a bit like a schoolboy again back at Catholic school, skipping between headstones lest a nun catch him stepping on a grave. _

_ "Ren?" Hux calls, not surprised he doesn’t get an answer as he crosses the rest of the field. "Ren?" _

_ He stops in front of Kylo, frowning at the tired bags under Kylo's eyes. He hadn't slept well the night before, he never did in hotel rooms. He crouches down and calls again, gently. "Ren?" _

_ Kylo’s eyes flutter open at last. _

_ Hux sighs in relief. He settles himself on the grass and reaches out to touch his husband’s forehead. Kylo looks flushed, but when he leans into Hux’s touch, his skin is cool. Hux is puzzled, but he lets the matter go, content enough that Kylo isn’t coming down with something. "Are you with me? You looked... lost." _

_ Kylo shifts his gaze, looking past Hux at something else. “I _ was _ lost, Hux. That’s how it’s designed...” _

_ Hux twists to glance over his shoulder at the old building. “Yes, a labyrinth of hallways and tunnels. Well, lucky us, we have a map.” He takes Kylo’s hand and squeezes it reassuringly. “Let’s get you something to eat, love.” _

* * *

Hux blew out a lungful of acrid smoke, standing on the rise of the hill above the old cemetery. Though the grass was freshly mown and a new little walking trail lead the way up, the oak trees remained the same as they had back then. The old trunks were as resolute as the brick of the old building. 

Above him dark clouds roiled and churned like turbulent waves, threatening to spill another volley of rain. The lights of Danvers glowed like beacons in the gloomy weather, the line of tall windows offering glimpses into the hive of activity that was gradually expanding. People scurrying about inside, some carrying things, moving in teams or alone, some appearing framed for a moment like a stolen snapshot before vanishing again.

Another drag, and Hux’s gaze roamed to the fourth floor of the tall administration building. There in the glow a figure stood unmoving before the window, backlit, features deep in shadow. A chill chased up Hux’s spine, the feeling of being watched icy and undeniable. He pulled his coat tighter around himself, blaming the fantasy on the cold splatter of rain hitting the back of his neck. He chided himself for acting like a Victorian maiden, but the figure remained still, and a sinking sensation filled Hux’s guts.  
  
Another spattering of rain and the trees rustled with the wind, shedding more of their already thin leaves, and Hux shook himself and began to pick his way across the grass towards that open door, ready to be back inside, not brooding in a crumbling cemetery in the rain like a dramatic teenager. He only paused once on his way back, unable to resist glancing up at the window, only to find it empty. 

As he stepped through the open door, the watched feeling intensified, and he hurried to to slam the thing shut and lock it behind himself. 

Hux shivered again now that he was back inside, the air conditioned corridors making him realize just how cold and damp he had become. He could hear distant activity, footsteps on the floor above but here on the first floor he was acutely aware of his own isolation. The hallway gaped wide to either side, and even with the bright lights and the knowledge that it was morning, the eerie feeling of the old hospital hung in the air, a thick miasma. 

“Oh?” Hux spoke into the silence as his eyes caught on something out of place, instinctively scouring the hall for any threats, perceived or otherwise. His eyes flicked from walls to ceiling to floor, they snagged on something he hadn’t noticed earlier. He crouched down to examine a strangely dull spot on the floor.

Entangled with his and Rey's trail was another footprint.

Or rather, more footprints the same as the others closer to the door, larger than his or Rey's. Dry blots that marred the fresh floor polish, visible only from certain angles and not while one is absorbed in the act of avoiding talking to one’s cousin-in-law. The only wet prints were the ones behind him, the ones he’d made himself coming in out of the rain. The others led away from the door and down the corridors towards the old administration building, the center of Danvers. 

Curious, Hux began to follow the trail. Some irresponsible crewperson had made a mess, and tracking them was his responsibility, as a senior member of the group, or so he told himself. It was also a convenient way to both escape the empty corridor and prolong finding Rey, and thereby avoid submitting himself to the Travel Channel crews and their likely ruthless interview skills. He was slotted for a one-on-one before the live footage began, but if he could put it off even for a while he gladly would.

He followed the footsteps, hunched over, eyes on the floor. To his surprise, Hux found the trail led him back up the stairs he and Rey had originally descended. It made sense when he thought about it, as the crewperson was likely returning to their sector after an unauthorized break, but the sensibility stopped when the footsteps continued up the stairs past the second floor. Hux climbed onward, up the switchbacks of the stairwell until the footsteps finally led onto the landing and away.

A new plastic sign on the wall declared this was the third floor, which was good, because to his eyes, the third floor looked identical to the first and second. The old patient wards were so alike in their design and layout that not even the restoration and internal remodel could do much to hide that fact. The numbers on what used to be the patient rooms were different, beginning with threes instead of ones, but there was little else to distinguish the space from the one below it. The woodwork, the windows, the baseboards, the floors, all of it was the same.

The floors.

He looked down. The footsteps were gone. He'd lost the trail.

Annoyed, he considered backtracking, but there was little point. He wasn't the errant crewperson's boss. He couldn't punish them, only embarrass them, and that would make the rest of the crew dislike him, and the entire filming day even more uncomfortable than it already was. Giving up, he headed west along the corridors, back towards the main building. 

The next ward was just same as the rest, only set forward at the slight angle that gave the old hospital its shallow V shape, like a child's drawing of a bird in flight. He could hear people in the wards he left behind, probably headed for the wingtips where the most extreme patients had been housed.

He peeked into the renovated cells that lined the halls as he walked, study rooms or some such now, and in some he could see cameras set up, recording devices prepped. They reminded him of the security feeds, and he wondered if anyone was watching him and shaking their heads at his rambles. There was nothing else of interest, so they might as well. It was empty room after empty room, white and new and clean.

Until one wasn't.

He almost walked right past it, jerking to a halt when he realized it was different. In the middle of the empty room was a digital recorder, set up beside a camera on tripod as usual, but that wasn't all. There was a stool in the center, too, with something flat on it. Hux looked up and down the hall before stepping into the room and picking up what turned out to be a sheet of paper. It was laminated, and it wasn't instructions or a press release or anything else that might be on a TV set. It was a page from a book.

His book.  
  
"20:35 October 5th, 2005, Ward B, room 114" was written at the top of the page.  
  
"Kylo had completed a near total sweep of the ward, using his pendulum with few results until he entered the doorway of room 114.*"

The asterisk was not part of the text, but had been drawn in with pen. Glancing at the bottom of the page, he found the corresponding note in the same pen. "Ward B = 2nd hall, floor three, rm 374". His gaze flicked towards the open door. On the front was the number ‘374’ stamped in white letters against an unassuming grey placard. 

Hux looked around the room again, but just like the first time, there was nothing to prove anyone had ever lived here, and less to prove that he and Kylo had once stood here together. He resumed reading, but not for content. He knew the content by heart. He'd written it, after all. It was the text marked with yellow highlighter that drew him in.  
  
"Kylo walked the room several times, his pendulum swung erratically with no discernable pattern except near the bed. The bed was in relatively good shape for the condition of the room, and Kylo requested we stop and try an EVP session. I was surprised when he sat on the bed, and more surprised when the frame held. The mattress was heavily stained and torn in places, but the bedframe appeared original to the hospital. It was made of iron and bolted to the floor in the style of beds seen in early Danvers photographs. 

“I used the radio to call for silence across all floors of ward C, and after the affirmative had been given by all parties, I noted the time as 20:35pm and began recording. Below is a transcript of that recording.

`AH: This is Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren. We are alone on the third floor. The nearest team is two floor below us and silence has been requested from all teams in the area. We are about to begin.`

`KR: This is Kylo Ren, acting medium. I will perform this session without further additional tools or resources.`

`--silence for 7 seconds-- `

`KR: Is there a spirit here in this room?`

`KR: Is there a spirit here who would like to communicate?`

`KR: I want to invite any spirits in this room to use my energy and communicate with us.`

`KR: ...What is your name?`

`KR: Did you die here?’`

`KR: Did you die in a... fire?`

“At this point in the session, we recorded an unexplained voice phenomenon. When played back, we and the team heard the words ‘smoke is coming’ clearly in a whispered voice. The voice sounded feminine to our teams. Each member listened to the EVP individually and all but two of the initial fifteen who listened heard a female voice say ‘smoke is coming’."


	6. Whispers in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whispers call out to Hux, and Danvers begins to stir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Danvers is finally back! I'm so sorry to everyone who had to wait so long for this new chapter, hopefully there won't be any more gaps in updates on this scale again.  
But for anyone who wants to read this fic with appropriate background music to bring you back into the story, here's the official Danvers playlist to set the tone.  
https://starkillersbae.tumblr.com/post/189003981281/the-danvers-project-a-playlist-for-a

“Where... am I?”

Hux’s head snapped up, tearing his eyes from the laminated page, the air punched from his lungs. That voice, muffled though it was, was familiar and dear. He knew that voice.

Kylo.

He all but tossed the page back onto the stool as he spun on his heel, scanning the room, straining his ears, but it was quiet. The new silence stretched on, until all Hux could hear was his own breath. He was just beginning to wonder if he had even heard anything when someone spoke again.

“Come on, then. There’s nothing up there.” 

The spell shattered, and he let out a confused breath. It wasn’t who he’d thought. It was a man’s voice, yes, but not... not Kylo’s. But whoever it was, they weren't in the room with him. He moved around, listening at the ducts and then the windows to locate the source of the voice, and wondered how his imagination could have turned on him. This voice was nothing like Kylo’s, nothing at all. Something about this building... 

“Quickly... Just down here...”

Hux frowned. He’d thought only a handful of people were working, and none in this area, not according to Poe’s cameras. Quickly he went to the doorway and peered down the long halls, looking first one way then the other. No-one was there, which meant that voice had definitely been coming from somewhere else. It had probably drifted up the stairs —

“The gurney,” more voices whispered, so hushed that without the thick quiet of the building and Hux’s stillness, they wouldn’t have been heard at all.

Hux leaned out of the doorway, unwilling to take a step past the door frame. The noise came again, soft sibilance, but he couldn’t make out the words anymore. They were just voices talking a floor down, soft as falling snow. 

“Hello?” he called out, his voice bouncing around the empty corridor. He ought to leave well enough alone. It was just the Rebel team, or the TV crews. Someone might’ve come to this area to set things up. It was probably nothing.

But as he turned back to the room, a shiver raced up Hux’s spine. The air was suddenly cold, as if a window had been left open to the frigid autumn rain, and he heard the voices again, filtering to him from the next ward, chatting quietly. They were distinct enough to make out individual voices, two or three maybe, neither loud nor quiet, but too far away from Hux to make out the details. 

“Come on then...”

“...about…”

“—but Kylo?”   
  
He stiffened, his chest squeezed all over again. What did that mean? Had someone been so crass as to play a recording of Kylo’s voice? Is that why he’d thought he’d heard it? But why here, so far from the main building? Were they testing something? Was it another one of those tacky planned scares?

If the idiot cable channel hand lured him here for some cheap, horrible reenactment... If Rey was in on it...!

He didn’t know if she was or not, or who was doing this. His radio was silent, but he had to see what these people were up to. Better to minimize damage that way, or at least see who had decided to mention Kylo and why. If it was one of the TV crews, he would need to interfere sooner rather than later.

He glanced behind him once more, about to give chase, when his eyes swept over the recorder in the room. Instinct told him to take it, rational thought told him it was stealing, and impulse said it could be returned when he was through with it. Clicking his tongue, he quickly grabbed the device and headed out into the hallway.

A quick look out the long, rain-streaked windows showed the parking lot was still largely empty. The cars said there weren’t many people, but all the same, he could hear shuffling sounds somewhere below him, and a metallic squeak that sounded like the wheel of an old shopping cart. Given how far they were from the nearest market, he suspected it was some gastly prop being rolled out, but even that was fading. They were moving too fast. He was going to lose them.

“Hello? Who's there?” Hux called as he jogged down the second floor hall. There, they were louder again, though still too jumbled to make out exact words. He could hear them just ahead, the squeaky wheel of the prop like an audible trail of breadcrumbs. What were they doing that they had to rush so damn much? He increased his speed. “Stop, I want to talk to you!”

God, he was getting out of breath. Pathetic. He used to be able to trek over fields and up and down stairs without his heart rate changing, now he was panting after a bunch of idiot television people too rude to answer. Laughter floated up to him from a floor below, and Hux reached for his hip radio, his cheeks flushed from exertion and embarrassment as he hit the button on the side to broadcast. 

“This is Hux. I’m in Ward D, would the nearest team please respond?” 

He let go of the talk button and checked the radio’s screen, only to realize it was blank. Scowling, Hux tucked the digital recorder under his arm and used his free hand to turn the dials and play with the power switch, but nothing happened. The radio was unresponsive, completely dead, and the squeaking wheel echoed from somewhere below, getting further away.   
  
“Damn it — WAIT! Hey!” Hux replaced the radio on his belt and rushed down the stairs, stolen digital recorder in hand, nearly slipping on the bottom step and stumbling into the gloom of the first floor hall. 

It was dark, and that was strange. The fluorescent lights had been on only an hour ago, but now they were off, and the gaping darkness stretched everywhere. The windows let in grayish light as they displayed the the grounds behind the entire structure, just as wet and miserably foggy as the front, but it wasn’t enough to chase away the murk. Ward D came to an end in this hallway, and Hux stood at the termination point, the place where the administration building split into two, the front half to his left, and the back half to his right. There was nothing in sight but shadows, and a strange ramp in front of him leading down to what looked like some sort of half basement. 

He stepped closer, pausing at the top of the ramp. His breath was visible in small plumes of cold white mist as he stared down into the darkness. Everything about this felt wrong. Somewhere a door or floorboard creaked. Hux’s thumb hovered over the record button, and finally he clicked it, an admission to himself that he was no longer chasing a film crew. The recorder beeped softly to life, and Hux stepped onto the ramp, the rhythmic squeaking of the old wheel stringing him along.  
  
“Who’s down there? This is Armitage Hux with the First Ord- The Rebel team!” Hux caught himself as he shouted down into the shadows, clutching the recorder tightly. 

A door slammed shut. He flinched, taking a step back as if the darkness that gaped at him was trying to warn him. Or maybe block his way. 

Locking his jaw, Hux pulled his phone from his pocket and activated the flashlight feature. The inky blackness seemed to swallow up the light that touched it. He took a deep breath and stepped onto the ramp. It held, and he forced himself to follow it as it curved away beneath the building. 

It ended shortly, the darkness thickening. Down here seemed to be mostly offices and other small rooms like closets or storage, the twisting corridors doubling back onto themselves, coils of hallways made difficult to reach for no discernible reason. He couldn’t find a light switch, but each time he slowed there came the metallic squeaking of the wheel, a bit of hushed conversation, and he’d find new energy, pushing away doubt and the slow, creeping blackness. Occasional exit signs glowed redly from the walls, but their promise of escape held a threatening falseness. It was go forward or nothing.

Danvers knew he was here. It was taunting him, but it wouldn’t win. 

He felt manic chasing down the promise of something otherworldly, his recorder was still rolling, his phone light dim and rocking with each step. It was exactly like he’d been at home, emptying the closet, setting up a hunt in his own house. Searching for Kylo. Desperation dogged his heels, and he jogged faster, nearly slamming into a wall as the hallway ended.  
  
Another T intersection, branches again stretching off to his left and right. It was wide and tiled in what looked like the old style, but surely that was impossible. The university had gone to great expense to redo the entire building. Most likely they weren’t the original tiles, only recreations refitted to the walls and replaced where too many had gone missing. The stains and discolorations were probably paint, added to make the place authentic. As if to lend credence to his theory, just a few feet to the left hung a translucent plastic sheet, split down the middle from floor to ceiling. It rustled softly in the breeze from the air vents above, and beyond it there was more rustling, as if someone had passed through another curtain of sheeting. Construction workers, probably, fixing up the walls.   
  
“Come out! I know you’re in there!” Hux yelled into the darkness. Only the soft swishing of plastic greeted him. He glanced to the right, which was darker but devoid of anything else. There was no way to be sure which direction the crew had gone. The air vents were moving the plastic, so that meant nothing. He was out of breath and frustrated — and from the left side of the corridor, came the squeak of an old wheel.   
  
Hux strode forward and pushed the plastic sheet aside. Ahead he could see another layer of sheeting just a few feet down, along with tools piled up against the wall. The remodel wasn’t finished, then. He checked that the recorder was still running, then pushed past the dangling sheeting, his phone’s light reflecting off the plastic.

It wasn’t just two sheets. It wasn’t even three. Barrier after barrier, sheeting hung every few feet along the hallway in long white curtains. Hux pushed past one after the other, slapping plastic out of the way, going faster and faster until he was panting again in the frigid air, all sense of distance lost. He shoved through another sheet and barked his shin on the edge of an overturned table, the sharp pain driving him to a halt.

He swore, clutching his leg, shivering as sweat cooled over his skin. Straightening, he released his shin and swung his light around the dark space. There were no more plastic sheets. There were no more sounds. The corridor was black and empty.

He was utterly alone. 

He turned his light towards the knocked over table and his heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t a table at all. It was a gurney.  
  
Hux moved around to one end. It was on its side, the legs sticking out. After carefully setting the recorder on the floor, he reached out, forcing one of the upended wheels to spin. The metallic squeal it made was the same one he’d been chasing.   
  
“Kylo...?” Hux whispered, looking around. He stood, taking a few slow steps into the thicker darkness past the gurney. “Kylo...”

Another metallic shriek cut the silence in answer, and Hux whirled to face it, his heart hammering. The wheel spun freely as if forced by an invisible hand to turn. 

“Kylo!” Oh, God. He was here. Hux had proof Kylo was here with him, proof some part of him still remained. He staggered to a halt, the weight of the evidence terrifying. A terrible maelstrom of fear and grief and joy crashed through him all at once. 

The plastic shifted, ths sound like dead leaves. Something was coming. 

Hux stumbled backwards, the back of his foot hitting the old gurney and nearly tripping him as he swung his phone light towards the sound, eyes huge, locked on the shifting plastic curtain. This was it. This was it —   
  
“Hux?”   
  
Poe stood between the halves of the plastic curtain, his hand up to shield his eyes. “Put that down, would you? Christ — false alarm, guys. It’s just Hux!” 

“Poe? What are you doing down here?!” Hux snapped. A portly man with a beard and a young woman with a blonde bob of hair stepped into the space around Poe, one with a camera and the other a knapsack and a recorder like Hux’s. They had their own flashlight, and they flipped it on, pointing it at the floor. They were noisy and wrecking everything, scaring him off — “You’re going to ruin the recording!” 

“What are you talking about? What recording?” Poe asked, stepping into the space, glancing around. His eyes widened as they lit on the digital recorder. “Did you get a reading? Why didn’t you radio?”

“Damn it, Poe! Do you at least have an EMF reader?” Hux scooped up his recorder before Poe could get too close.   
  
“Yeah, I got one, relax.” Poe quickly reached back to one of his crew members, wiggling his fingers. They passed their recorder over, and with a hurried thanks Poe took it, flicking it on. It gave a quick wail and clicked once or twice, the bar wobbling in the lower end of the range. 

Poe only frowned before passing it to Hux. “What happened down here? You find a ghost by this old gurney? I’m surprised it’s still sitting here. Woulda thought they’d cleaned all this stuff up.” 

Hux snatched the EMF reader out of Poe’s hand, trying to juggle the devices and only grudgingly handing Poe his phone, ignoring the roll of Poe’s eyes as he began waving the EMF reader around. The readouts on its little screen and its wobbling needle never climbed higher than the expected background reading. “I don’t understand, there was phenomena! There was!”

Poe’s hand landed on Hux’s shoulder, his brows knitted. “Okay, what’s going on? We can set up a perimeter, take readings, get a plan, but you gotta tell me what happened.” 

The words were so concerned that all the wild energy keeping Hux moving drained away. He deflated, realizing how he sounded, like an unseasoned novice looking for ghosts in every dark corner. “We... we should mark this as a point of note if we can spare the equipment. I heard voices, and the gurney wheel, it...”

“Did it move? What were the voices? It could have been our team talking,” Poe said awkwardly, looking back at the two crew members standing behind him, both watching the scene curiously. 

“...It must have just been your team, or the sheeting,” Hux said slowly.  
  
“No problem, we’ll still mark this as a point of interest. Take a few readings later tonight?” 

“Yes, please. If there is something here, better to have it documented. On the network’s dime, too, if possible.” 

Poe patted his shoulder. “Yeah, we’ll make sure to use their equipment. We got this. But why're you down here? Thought you and Rey were checking out that door.” 

Hux only nodded as he handed back the EMF reader in exchange for his phone, though he refused to hand over the recorder. If something really had happened, the recorder would prove it. “I was, but we went our separate ways. I wanted a minute to see the building for myself. Though, my radio seems to have died. I’ll head back, get it replaced.” 

“Are you sure about that? If your radio is down and all —” 

Hux gave Poe a withering look and held up the cellphone he had just taken back. “I think I’ll survive. Worse comes to worst, I’ll turn on the lights.”

“All right, we’ll catch up with you,” Poe said as Hux moved past him, pushing the hanging sheet of plastic aside.. 

Hux let the sheet fall back, hiding him from Poe — or Poe from him — as he made his way back through the corridor, stepping around the construction tools still in a pile. So much for finishing the remodel. 

One of the glowing exit signs came into view, reminding him he wasn’t trapped, but Hux ignored it. His mind was going in circles, slow at first, then faster, and as he thought, he walked faster, too, slapping sheet after sheet of plastic curtain out of his way. There were no voices following him, no mysterious footprints. His radio dying could have been a coincidence. Shoddy equipment made faulty by his brief trek outside in the rain. The noises could have been the weather, the wind, or his own imagination, his brain trying to create sound in the extreme silence. The remodel wasn’t even completed, a million things in this old building could have squeaked or whispered or hissed. He was wrong, he'd mistaken everything.

The last plastic curtain parted, and he could eventually see the grey aura of the windows on the floor above, their light reaching down to the bottom of the ramp. He staggered to the wall, one hand on the cold tiles, the other cradling the recorder. Hux wasn’t afraid of the dark, but the light gave him no peace. He felt more alone than he ever had. 

He’d become so used to knowing Kylo was with him in the darkest places that he could no longer remember how to be by himself, even four years later. 

He looked up to the top of the rampway and shivered. It was even colder down here. From here, he could see the rainy sky through the windows, and the feeling of being watched snaked up his spine and under his skin. An animal fear crept in, icy and unsettling. His breath shortened, his heart pounding. He glanced behind him, but nothing was there. Nothing in any direction—

“...Hux...” 

His heart stopped.

* * *

_ “Hux...” Kylo’s voice cuts softly through the fog of sleep. The weight of the mattress shifts, the frame groaning in protest as the covers are drawn away, and Hux feels the cool night air against his skin just as hot breath ghosts across his neck. “Hux...” _

* * *

“Kylo?” Hux asked the darkness. Minutes dragged on, but only the plastic sheets whispered back. 

**09:40 October 31st, 2009** **  
** **Administration building, First Floor**

The climb to the first floor took more effort than it should have. The rest of the hallway seemed longer, the ramp steeper, the air freezing. Hux swore the remodelers had skipped the insulation install, at least, until he reached the first floor and saw the double doors wide open, the lobby filled with cold air and bustling people. Wet Floor signs had been set out on the puddle that was the lobby floor, and the first wave of film crews hurried back and forth under ponchos and umbrellas, toting damp equipment and plastic-wrapped electrical gear. A small crowd was forming, people setting things up and moving things out, calling to each other and pointing. It looked like a mess.

But Hux offered no input, stepping around the crates of supplies and avoiding puddles as he made his way up the next flight of stairs. He needed to get his own equipment, he needed to figure out what to do with the leaden weight of evidence in his pocket. EVPs were notorious for not being audible until slowed down and analyzed for abnormalities, and very few EVPs would just play over the recording device’s speaker, so it wasn’t as if Hux could pull it out and show it to Rey as-is. He needed to sit down and tear the evidence apart, prepare it. Then he could show it to her, and they could prove Kylo was here.

He reached the second floor and crossed to the command hub. Finn was hunched over the table, but Rey was nowhere in sight.

“Finn, where did the others go?” Hux asked as he approached, 

“Oh! Hey, Hux,” Finn looked up from the many computer monitors fanned out around him and gave a quick smile. “I was actually checking the security feeds for you. Poe said you were heading this way. I guess your radio died?” He came around the desk, hand out.

“Ah, yes. I’m afraid it must have had a low charge when I took it — Poe radioed about me?” Hux didn’t know what to think about that. Poe, looking out for him? He unclipped his radio and handed it over, noticing the way Finn’s smile dropped as he took it. 

“Yeah, wanted to make sure you got back alright. Said you were down in the offices?” 

“Yes, I was taking a tour of the building. I suppose I must have gotten sidetracked. Lucky I ran into Poe.”   
  
“Mm-hm. Hey, ah, when did you get into Danvers? You drove all the way up from Hartford, right?”   
  
Hux nodded, shifting under Finn’s scrutiny. “Yes, it wasn’t exactly a long drive. About two hours, including checking into the hotel this morning. Hardly late, I had thought.” 

“I wasn’t saying you were late. No offense, but Hux, you look pretty beat. We all planned on getting naps back at the hotel later, since we’re gonna be here from sun down to sun up, you know, an all-nighter, so if you wanted to ditch interviews with the TV crew, you won’t be missing much around here.” 

At once Hux felt his hackles rise. He always hated being told to go rest, or ‘take it easy’, but he forced himself not to scowl. Finn was being earnest, and had nothing to prove by taking Hux out of the picture. Besides, the weight of the recorder in Hux’s pocket nagged at him. It might be the best opportunity he would get. 

“All right. You’re... you’re probably right. I’ll have my cell phone charged so if you need me, you can reach me.” 

Finn wore his relief on his sleeve. He was a good man to care even remotely. As if to cement that thought, Finn added, “Hold on just a moment, before you go anywhere. I’ve been watching your bag, you left it behind,” and then was off, rabbiting to one of the many tables laden with supplies, leaving Hux to stare after him in surprise. 

* * *

_ “ _ _ Hux! Hey!” Kylo calls. _

_ “Yes?” Hux glances across the parking lot of the old bar they’d canvassed that night, then sets the last cardboard box into the crowded trunk, eyeing the mass of equipment. In the new light of dawn, it seems as though there’s even less room than there’d been when he’d packed the day before. They really do need a better car for this. “Find something after all?” _

_ “You could say that.” Kylo jogs over, black t-shirt stretched nicely over his chest, and holds out a small brown messenger bag by its wide canvas strap. “Almost left this behind.” _

* * *

Finn returned in a blink, triumphantly holding the old green ALICE pack. “Here, we had to move it out of the way. Don't want you to lose it.” 

Hux reached for it, somehow embarrassed. “Thank you. It was presumptuous of me to leave it there.”

“It’s no problem, really. It’s not like you had time to come back for it. I think Rey is glad you went with her—”

Someone on the other side of the room called Finn’s name, loudly.

Finn clicked his tongue and gave Hux an apologetic look. “They want me. I have to go. But hey, you can hide out as long as you like. We’re not starting till about seven, so as long as you’re back by then?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss it.” 

**12:40 October 31st, 2009** ****  
**Marriott Hotel, Danvers Massachusetts** **  
** **Room 405**

Hux clicked rapidly through a series of filters, listening to the audio file. The proof was there, he had just to uncover it. Slower. Reduce static. He played the part again. Only a second worth of audio, but enough. More static. More. And then —

“...Hux...”

Hux froze, listening as the audio track played on. His own voice came five seconds later, painfully slow and slightly echoing but clear as a bell. “Kylo?”

Hux stopped it, hit replay and closed his eyes. The voice was distant, far away as if coming from the end of a tunnel, but the deep tone, the inflection on the beginning, the way Kylo could almost make it into two syllables, like he wanted to drag it out, make up for the shortness of the name Hux preferred.

“...Hux...” 

“Kylo,” Hux said in unison with the Hux on the recording. He stopped the file, pulling the headset off his ears and ignoring the muss of his hair. He leaned back in the hotel desk chair, his back cracking as it was finally freed from his hunched over position. 

“You finally gave me proof,” Hux said to no one at all as he saved his work, clipping down the audio to only the important moment and saving it to a flash drive. 

He crossed the room to his pack on the bed, taking a deep breath before opening the bag and rummaging around toward the bottom corner, beneath the extra wires and the battery packs he had packed for that night. He hadn’t checked on it in the car because he’d tried to make himself forget it was there, but now... Now he needed to see it. His fingers found soft wool, and he carefully extricated a ball of thick striped winter socks. He opened the bundle carefully, and there, nestled inside protective layers, lay Kylo's red pendant.

"I know I'm being stupid," he murmured. “I meant to leave this behind..."

That was a lie. He'd brought the thing along. Even as he'd packed it, he knew he couldn't use it; he didn't have Kylo's ability, and it was cracked, in danger of breaking. He should've left it at home, safe with Phasma and Millicent.

Chest aching, he lifted the pendulum from its nest by the chain, pulled it over his head, and tucked the whole thing into his shirt. It was cold against his skin, but he pressed a hand to the hardness of it, and it quickly warmed.

"You didn’t just run off. I know you didn’t." There was no answer, but he hadn't expected one. Those days were long gone. The sentiment was there, though, and the desire to find out what had occurred that night was stronger than ever. He trusted Kylo; whatever happened, he had to hold onto that. “You wouldn’t want me to run off either, would you? You reached out... Kylo, I heard it, I have evidence, you were there with me. I’ll go back, I’ll do it for you.”

Talking to himself. He was closer to senile than he’d thought.

With Kylo’s pendulum around his neck, he closed his bag and put the flash drive securely into one of the zippered pouches. There was nothing left to do, and Hux sat on the bed beside the pack. Exhaustion swamped him, the starched hotel pillows alluring, and he stretched out with a quiet groan. It was okay, he had proof. He would rest and be clear-headed when he presented it to Rey. He just needed to close his eyes, that was all. Just for a minute. 


	7. Sun Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sun sets at Danvers and the investigation begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a brief sex scene in this chapter, you can skip to the second time stamp to avoid it. :3

_ “Are you sure about this?” Hux asks as he trudges after Kylo through the knee-deep New Jersey snow. He’s bundled up in a sweater, scarf, a hat and two coats, but he’s still freezing. It’s 1999, one would think technology would have solved this whole cold issue, but no. He feels a distinct kinship for whatever soldiers died here, especially those still stuck in the cold earth. _

_ They’d come out in the dead of winter for the anniversary of the Revolutionary War battle that had taken place on the farm, the area supposedly rife with paranormal activity. But so far the investigation is, no pun intended, dead. The entire First Order team is stationed at the house, packed like sardines in a tin with little to do and nothing to prove. The only unusual things about the place are an overabundance of doilies and porcelain cats. _

_ Worst of all, Kylo was restless. Unable to focus on the investigation in the house, he wanted to explore the barns and fields. After two days of falling snow and unceasing wheedling and arguing, Hux had finally agreed to follow Kylo outside into the biting January cold. _

_ But now, out in the thick of it, with the wind and a full moon so bright that they have no need of the flashlight Hux is carrying, Hux wants nothing to do with this man ever again. His boyfriend is a tall shadow walking without regard for Hux, plowing through the snow like a moose on those massive pistons he calls legs, while Hux is left to trudge along in his wake. No, Hux is done with the idiot. He’s swearing off Kylo’s husky voice and his beautiful smile, not to mention the disturbingly attractive way he talks about feelings and instinct. The only instinct Hux feels when Kylo talks like that is to commit acts currently illegal in several countries. Or rather, he used to feel that. Now his frostbitten soul feels only the crunch of snow crust and regret. _

_ “Kylo! It's a pendulum on a windy night! It’s not leading us anywhere!” Hux finally calls. _

_ The damnable red crystal swings randomly on its silver chain, held out like a lightless lantern, and Kylo presses doggedly onward, giving Hux no response. Every chilled nerve in Hux’s body sings with irritation and demands he turn around and go back inside and leave Kylo to it. _

_ “Kylo!” Hux shouts, planting his feet. “This is ridiculous! I’m not going one step further _ — _ " _

_ A mighty crash smashes the wintery silence, and Kylo is gone, swallowed up by the noise. _

_ Hux’s heart slams against his ribs, jolted into motion like a panicked horse. He struggles as fast as he can through the snow, stumbling and sliding and nearly pitching forward into the opening that gapes suddenly before him, a deep black void. Hands shaking, Hux fumbles with his flashlight, shining it at the hole. The light catches on snow and dirt, and on old wooden steps leading into the earth. _

_ “KYLO!” He throws himself into the darkness, gasping icy air as he runs down the stairs, only to trip halfway as one cracks and breaks beneath his foot, sending him tumbling the rest of the way. He loses his flashlight and ducks his head, trying to protect himself as he falls, weightless, upended _ — _ and smashes into something softer than wood at the bottom. _

_ Something that groans. _

_ “Hux?” Kylo’s voice asks, and the hard-soft thing beneath his palms rumbles with the words. _

_ Hux lets out a shaking breath, staring hard in the dim light. Moonlight follows them down the hole, and as his eyes adjust, Kylo’s face comes into view like a developing Polaroid. “You insufferable _ — _ unbelievable _ — _ !” He doesn’t even know what to say, his heart is racing and the adrenaline has him shaking. He bangs his fist on Kylo’s chest. “Following that fucking crystal of yours!” _

_ “I know. I know, you were right. That makes you feel better, doesn’t it?” _

_ Hux smacks him again. “Why the fuck would it?! Are you all right?” _

_ Kylo doesn’t answer. He reaches out with his long arm, grunting as he finds what he's looking for. He turns on Hux's flashlight and shines it around the space, and Hux can’t help but look. _

_ It’s a root cellar, or at least, it was. Canned goods and cloudy glass jars line shelves on the walls, and sacks of what might have been produce sit in lumpy burlap bags beneath them. Old farming tools hang on hooks, their blades rusted and pitted. But the room is the wrong shape. It’s too long, and stretches back much further than any farmer would have bothered to dig, the wooden beams holding the ceiling up too rough and unplanned. _

_ “It’s earthworks,” Kylo murmurs from beneath Hux. _

_ “From the revolution,” Hux agrees, voice just as quiet. The space deserves their respect, at least a for a moment. And then, stubbornly, glaring back at Kylo, “Since you're not hurt, I'll have you know that this doesn’t prove you were on to anything.” _

_ Kylo blinks, then bursts into laughter and hugs Hux, his arms strong and tight. Despite himself, Hux finds he’s laughing too. He collapses, his head resting on Kylo’s chest, listening to the reassuring beat of Kylo’s heart beneath him and the deep, alive thrumming of his voice as their laughter mingles and the place between them slowly warms. _

_ Before he can think better of it, Hux pushes himself up again and claims Kylo’s mouth with a messy kiss. Their lips are cold, but Kylo’s mouth opens and his tongue is hot, his breath hotter. Hux’s heart picks up again, a different sort of excited. Kylo is safe, and of all the blasted men in the world, Kylo is his. _

_ They cling to each other, the kisses growing sloppier, more intense, until ice-cold hands slide under Hux's shirt, startling a yelp out of him. “Kylo!” _

_ But Kylo’s mouth is scalding, distracting, and his calloused hand quickly warms as he moves the coats and slides chilled fingers under the waist of Hux's jeans, undoing his fly with a skilled flick. Hux clings desperately to Kylo, spreading his legs and offering his throat even as he tries to stop. "Wait, wait, we should get back." _

_ “Real quick, c'mon. I haven’t had you in two days.” Kylo murmurs. His rough palm wraps around Hux’s hardening length, and though Hux hisses at the sudden cold, he rocks his hips forward, rutting into the tight grip. _

* * *

**14:40 October 31st, 2009** **  
** **Marriott Hotel, Room 403** **  
** **Danvers, Massachusetts ** **  
** _  
_Hux groaned and shifted, his own hand too warm as it slipped beneath the waistband of his pants, his palm too smooth as he slid beneath his underwear and took himself in hand. 

“Ah... Kylo...” 

He pushed his face into the pillow, barely awake. He felt soft at the edges, blurred out with his eyes closed and the hotel bedspread bunched up beneath his legs. He could almost hear Kylo whispering into his ear, hear his deep voice, and he could remember the way Kylo moved under him. Hux's breath began to quicken.

“Kylo_ ... _”

  
**19:00 October 31st, 2009** **  
** **Danvers State Hospital** **  
** **Danvers Massachusetts**

For the second time that day, Hux pulled up to the looming structure of Danvers State Hospital. His confidence had been restored by the long break, and even more so by the flashdrive tucked safely into his pack. He could change the whole direction of the investigation with this. The building stretched forebodingly into the night sky, but Hux wouldn't be frightened away. He and Danvers had unfinished business. 

Gripping the pendulum tucked beneath his shirt, Hux whispered a promise. Then he shut off his car and pulled on his Burberry wool coat before shouldering the old pack and striding through the rain to the front steps. The rain had picked up, proving it would be a bad night for trick-or-treaters: few giving out candy, even less collecting it. More people would be staying in to watch the television. It reminded him there was barely an hour before the broadcast started. He had to hurry.

He ducked inside. The wooden doors shut heavily behind him. 

The lobby was brightly lit, filled with an impressive cast of crew members in black t-shirts with the blue Travel Channel logo emblazoned across the breasts. Work lights had been set up and waited on standby, waiting like soldiers at attention. Dozens of folding chairs matched half as many folding tables, all lined along one of the lobby walls, the tables heavy with sandwich trays and and the chairs heavy with idle staff eating supper. Another couple of tables stood by themselves closer to the center of the room, laden with spare equipment and a charging station that blinked happily. Though likely less than fifty people all together, ghost hunters and crew included, it seemed excessive to Hux. Cluttered.

Nearby, two women with Gibson girl hairstyles stood still as dolls, both having makeup applied while someone else pinned starched white nurse’s caps to their heads and tied white aprons over their high-necked, floor-length black dresses. Actresses, no doubt, meant to add a touch of believable realism to whatever questionably tasteful scene the Travel Channel was planning to re-enact. They probably had people dressed as patients, too, complete with straight jackets and shaved heads. Disgusting. 

He moved out of the vestibule and further into the administration building, glancing down dark hallways peopled with shadows. Someone radioed to a camera crew elsewhere, asked for a ping back about the prerecording, and Hux found himself wondering if they were safe. 

He shook the feeling off. The building, the experience itself, was somehow more than it had been the first time, more on a grand scale, but by the same token, lessened for its swaths of people and the knowledge the lights could be turned on at any time. Danvers was only as dangerous as the crew decided to make it, at least as far as they were concerned. What lurked in here didn’t want them.

Just as Hux began to make his way across the lobby, his coat swishing around his knees, someone called out to him. “Hey! Buddy! Who are you?” 

Hux paused, glancing back. At least they weren’t letting just anyone wander around. “Can I help you?”

The man in question already had a cameraman following him like a shadow. He was big and firm, a high school footie player going slowly to fat as he approached fifty, fighting his body the entire way. Even his suit was too young, the wrong color and not even tailored. “You supposed to be here?”

“Yes, I’m meant to be here. I’m with the Rebel Investigation team, I would appreciate it if you could direct me to Ms Skywalker—” 

“Wait a minute. You Armitage Hux?” 

Hux scowled at the use of his first name, but nodded curtly. “Yes. Now if you could direct me to Rey, this is important.” 

“Yeah, yeah of course. I’m John Bullman, by the way. I’ve got you slated for an interview before this gets started though, so if you wouldn’t mind —” 

“I assure you, Mr Bullman, I do mind,” Hux snapped and stalked off, heading for the nearest set of stairs. He had no idea who that idiot man was, and he didn’t care. Finding Rey took precedence over everything else. If Finn was still at the command hub up there on the second floor, he could radio Rey, find out her location. Hell, Hux could steal a radio and call her himself if that’s what it took. He needed to show Rey what he had brought, show her the evidence — oh, damn it, he had a fucking phone —

“Hux?” 

Hux stopped just at the foot of the stairs, phone out. “I said I’m busy!”

“You are Mr Hux, aren't you?” 

Hux turned and immediately his patience thinned. Behind him stood an older gentleman, round wire-rimmed spectacles and white lab coat indicating he was a doctor, or at least dressed as one. He was part of the same re-enactment as the Gibson ladies, perhaps. He was also vaguely familiar, and Hux wondered briefly if he was someone who’d been on other television shows. Anne of Green Gables, maybe, or Grey’s Anatomy. Something less offensive than this special. “I’m sorry, I thought you were — can I help you? If this is about filming, I’m occupied.” 

He took a step, fully intending to escape whatever insipid assignment had been dredged up for him, but the older man stepped in, far too close. “It’s Ms Skywalker, sir. She requires your assistance in Ward H.”

“My assistance?” Hux repeated.

“Yes, she’s in need of someone with your... particular expertise.”

Hux barely suppressed a sneer. The man was far too into his character. The way he rolled that last bit over his tongue was creepy and impertinent, but Hux had no time to lecture him on manners and method acting and rules about not pulling someone into a scene without their consent. If Rey needed his help, well, there was a mutual need.  
  
“I’d better hurry then. Thank you,” Hux said curtly, hastening to put as much space between himself and the Oscar contender as quickly as possible. He needed to text Rey, or even better, call her. Splitting up without communicating was Rebel Investigations’ forte, and Hux had no interest in learning that particular skill.

Hux hurried up the stairs, tapping his phone flashlight on as he entered the unlit area of the hospital. Halfway between the infamous Ward J, where the most extreme patients were kept, and the convalescence wards closest to the main building, sat Ward H. It had never made a name for itself. There was no documented reason for Rey to be there, unless she was part of that ‘prerecording’ he’d overheard, but it hardly mattered. He needed to find her before filming began in earnest.

He exited on the second floor and crossed swiftly from the convalescence ward, passing floor-to-ceiling windows and empty rooms drenched in darkness. He composed a text to Rey as he went, his phone’s flashlight bobbing over the floor. He reached Ward H just as he hit Send, and slowed, swinging the phone light up to the sign above the nearest stairwell. It read ‘Hall 6’, and Hux cursed as he tried to count out the wards in his head. Over one hundred years with the buildings marked as wards, and someone had gone and changed it to numbers. Shivering, he pulled his coat closer, glancing down at his phone to see if Rey had replied when noise thundered up the stairs above him, loud and heavy and fast. 

“Rey?” Hux called into the gaping darkness above where his weak phone flashlight could not penetrate. "Hey!" 

He whipped around and dashed up the stairs, taking the risers two at a time to catch whoever it was. If it was Rey, it would save him some looking, but part of him hissed at him to be honest with himself. The steps were far too weighty for her alone, and too close for the crew to ignore him. He gritted his teeth. He’d chased the squeaking of a gurney wheel and whispers before, if this was evidence, he wouldn’t let it escape. “Hello? Stop, whoever you are!” 

He followed the noise, put on a burst of speed, and exploded onto the third floor, breathing hard. “Rey? Dameron? Is that you?” The hallway was dark, his phone’s light barely penetrating more than a meter, but it was also silent. “... Kylo?”

The only reply was more silence. Cursing, he whipped around, coat flapping, and started back down the stairs. Rey obviously wasn’t up here and he could hear nothing, but he needed to stop getting distracted. He had evidence, and seeing it put into Rey’s hands was the most important thing now. Torn between the urge to press deeper into the darkness in pursuit or see his task done, he decided to call Rey instead. 

Hux brought the phone up, opening his contacts as he rounded the turn at the interim landing and started down the next flight.

The frigid, shivery feeling hit him right before the shove.

The force nailed him in the back and he pitched forward, his feet missing the next step. He cried out, arms pinwheeling as he fell into empty air, the hard stairs rushing up to meet him. The phone crashed somewhere down the steps and he flailed wildly, throwing his weight to the side, just barely catching the polished guardrail that ran along the inside of the stairwell. He banged into it with his chest before he slid down it, grabbing at it as he collapsed to his knees with a teeth-rattling jolt. Legs unevenly splayed on the steps, he clutched at the carved wooden balusters, breath coming too fast, heart pounding wildly at the sudden shock. A floor below him his phone lay as an island of light in the darkness, the light shining up at him from below but useless to see by.

His back hurt, a sharp ache like a bruise. Something had hit him, and though he hated to think about it, he recognized the sensation. Hands. Two strong hands. 

Someone had deliberately pushed him. 

He looked toward the top of the stairs, eyes wide, hair falling into his eyes. The phrase repeated in his mind over and over -- someone had pushed him -- and as he moved to stand, he froze, his head snapping toward the sound coming from above him.

Footsteps. 

They moved leisurely toward him, slow and steady, the culprit hidden around the bend in the staircase. He stared up the empty stairwell, unblinking, chest hitching with unsteady breaths as the steps came closer... And closer...

And passed him. 

Without pausing, the scuff of shoes unmistakeable and loud right beside him, they went down the stairwell and around the next switchback, all the way down to the first floor landing. The light from the phone lit up the edges of the steps, but caught no silhouettes. There was nobody there.

His heart in his throat, clutching the victorian banister, Hux stared at the darkness for minutes more, until he forced himself to move. He’d chased voices, he had proof of Kylo’s existence. Danvers couldn’t scare him, not now.

He couldn’t see the next raiser for the crushing darkness, so slowly, feeling his way, Hux climbed down to the middle landing, taking the last few steps in a clumsy hop as he dropped down to pick up his phone. 

The screen was cracked, a bar of green bisecting the top third of it, and the glass was shattered, pieces missing from the edges. Hux numbly tried to unlock it, but the screen rejected every attempt at entering his pin. 

Suddenly the footsteps returned, and Hux scrambled backwards away from the stairs, clutching his broken phone and brandishing the flashlight towards the last set of risers leading down to the first floor. 

“Come out!” Hux yelled. “I’m not afraid of you!” The pitch of his voice was too high, but then the steps were running forward and the stairwell flooded with light, blinding him. 

“Hux?!” a familiar voice exclaimed.

“Rey?” Hux asked, never so relieved to see a scrawny teenage girl in his life. “What are you — Did you see anything? Or — or feel anything, just now?!” 

“What are you talking about?” Rey hurried out of the stairwell as Hux took a step towards her, trying to control his own shaking, but she reached out to him and her small hand grasped his upper arm, concern etched across her features. “What happened to you?” 

“I—I need to tell you. I need to show you, and they don’t—” 

“Shh, shh. Okay, it’s okay, I believe you. Let’s just — right here, okay?”

Hux didn’t even realize he was being led. Rey’s flashlight spilled its light onto the floor as she gently guided him down the steps to the first floor. He nearly lost his footing, unable to tear his gaze from the darkness above them, the feeling that he would be struck again from the shadows heavy. She pulled on his arm, holding him steady with more strength than he’d suspect of her.

“Let’s sit —”

“No. Please, not here. Anywhere else —”

“Okay. All right, just against the wall, then. It’s okay.”

Hux let Rey cut him off, realizing as she soothed him like a panicked horse that he must look the part of a mad man. She was barely an adult, and he was forcing her to look after him. It wasn’t right. He leaned against the wall beside the stairs, meaning only to squat and keep his feet, but he sat down heavily instead, his pack sliding to the floor. He set his ruined phone on his leg and closed his eyes, rubbing them with the heels of his hands, trying to force some clarity into himself. 

Rey waited. She rubbed his upper arm, his shoulder, murmuring soft words.

When he had taken three, then four, then finally five steadying breaths, he opened his eyes. “Are we alone?” he croaked, unsure what he even wanted the answer to be. 

She glanced up and down the hallway, shining her flashlight in sweeping arcs. “It looks like it. Did you feel something?”

He swallowed. “Did you?”

Rey paused, clearly uncertain whether to answer. He didn’t blame her. “... yes. But it’s gone now. There’s nothing here.”

“It touched me.” At her frown, he added quickly, “It pushed me. I fell. Rey, it’s here, it’s Kylo, he’s here, and he hates me —”

“Hux, wait, hold on.” She set her flashlight down and caught both his hands with hers, squeezing. “He doesn’t hate you —”

“He hates me because I didn’t stop him.”

“He would never.”

He shook his head once, hard. “No. I yelled at him, I called him names, he wouldn’t talk to me and I was so angry that he was ruining it, our big chance. I let it take him because I didn’t know, and I should have!”

“No, that’s wrong.” Rey jiggled his hands, squeezing again. “Hux, this is useless. Kylo loved you, he wouldn’t be mad at you when it isn’t even your fault.”

“How do you know?”

“I —”

“Because you feel him, don’t you? Sense him, whatever it is you do. The both of you, you’re so goddamned cryptic —”

“Hux, please —”

“— never telling anyone what’s going on, never just letting me know! I could’ve helped!” He was shaking again, her hands so much hotter than his. He tried to pull his free, but she wouldn’t let go. “I could’ve helped, maybe, even if I’m not a fucking medium!”

Rey’s frown twisted into worry, the expression stark, lit from beneath by her flashlight. “Hux? Okay. Hux, maybe we should take you back to the hotel room.”

“Kylo’s here,” he hissed. “You know he’s here, and I have proof.”

“Hux —”

This time he did yank his hands free. “Don’t you dare lie to me. You brought us here, Rey, you wanted to do this. He’s here, and he’s angry. Tell me the truth.”

“I wasn’t...” She drew her hands into her lap, wetting her lips before answering. “I did sense him, sort of, but I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure. I didn’t want you to do...” She gestured at him. “This. It would’ve been torture for you if I was wrong, and I don’t have any proof. It’s just a feeling —”

“I have proof. I said that, I have proof, why does nobody listen to me?!”

She lifted one hand, thought better of it, and touched his knee. “I’m listening! I don’t understand, though. How can you have proof?”

Hux turned away from Rey, fumbling for his bag, trembling hands going to the zipped pocket he had secured the drive in. “I have audio, it's his voice, I’d know his voice anywhere. He reached out to me, and I captured it, I had the...” His brows furrowed. The drive wasn’t in the pocket, and he was sure he had put it there.

“Maybe you left it in the hotel.”

“No!” He tore open the next pocket, then the next, their emptiness taunting him, and he clawed frantically at the main flap, undoing buckles and pulling what felt like miles and miles of wires and recorders and battery packs out, dumping it all on the floor. “It’s here, I just have to find it—!” 

He didn’t hear Rey move, didn’t notice until she captured both his hands again, holding them tight. "Hux, stop."

"But I had it, I'm not some careless amateur!"

“I know, I know. But you said you heard his voice?”

Hux stopped his useless searching but he couldn't look at her, pain lancing through his heart. People who were not mediums couldn’t hear the voices of the dead, yet he had. “I did, I—”

“What did he say?”

“Just... just my name. That’s all. But it was him, I know it was.”  
  
“I believe you.” 

Hux let out a breath, his shoulders still tight. “Maybe it’s here, it might have fallen out, we can search.” 

“Yeah, we can look for it, but I think we both know it’s gone.” 

The silence hung heavy between them for a few moments, then Rey let go of his hands and settled herself on the floor beside Hux. 

“What happened that night? What really... What really happened to him?” 

Hux fiddled with the mess he’d made, picking up the pieces and slowly putting each item back in his bag. He kept the flashlight out now that his phone was utterly in ruin. With a click of the switch it came on, joining Rey’s flashlight so the stairwell now had a soft glow of dim light, just enough to see by as he closed up the bag.

He owed this to her.  
  
“I... “ The words caught in Hux’s throat, he swallowed hard. The events of that night were never far from him, and they came back in a rush. 

Rey played with her fingers, watching her hands. “I always wondered. I read the book as soon as it came out. But... you didn’t intend for it to be read, did you? I knew Kylo, so it felt like... like pieces of the story were missing, there were holes where the truth ought to be.” A sixteen-year-old girl, losing what for all purposes was her big brother, and only having Hux’s book for any sort of comfort. 

The guilt doubled. “I was afraid. I... I wanted him back so badly. But I was afraid of what people would think. That maybe I had pushed him too far, maybe...” 

Hux looked up at Rey finally, feeling like he was peeling back layers of skin. “He had depression. He had a history of running away, changing his name... so I thought, maybe I pushed him too far and he ran. But I heard his voice. So he’s... He’s...” 

“He’s not gone. He reached out to you, that means he’s here, with us, and trying to talk to us.” She put her hand over his, not holding, just touching. Even in the dim light he could see the watery reflection of her eyes, the hope he was struggling to find. 

“Isn’t that worse? Trapped here, forever, another wandering spirit?” Hux stood up, shrugging off Rey’s touch, and pulling his coat tighter around himself. The building could have been furnace hot and he would have still felt cold. “I told him, that night— I told him to leave. I screamed at him. I belittled him. I knew his moods weren’t stable, I knew places like this affected him, and I still let myself get angry.” 

* * *

_ “REN!” Hux shouts, his temper getting the better of him as he runs up to the fencing that divides the stairwell and cranes his neck, trying to peer into the gloom of the partitioned-off patients’ side. He grabs at the fencing that separates them and yanks at it, rattling it uselessly. _

_ “FINE! Run off and pout!” Hux shouts into the darkness, pushing himself away from the fencing to storm down to the lower floor. _

* * *

“I don’t think you caused this,” Rey said softly, drawing Hux from his bleak thoughts. “I don’t think you being angry would have done that to him, he loved you. ...but there’s a presence here. I’ve felt it, it’s—”

“Evil? Darkness,” Hux said flatly, smiling ruefully at Rey’s surprised expression. “Kylo said the same thing and went chasing it, and I told him to go.”

“No, Hux I mean— it’s like that, but it’s something tied to this place.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

She sat up more, gesturing around them. “It’s in the air, the walls — I don’t know why you can see Kylo and not this, or why I can sense both but I can’t see Kylo, but if this what affected him, maybe there’s a reason it’s affecting you, too.”

“If there is,” he said, the words vibrating with urgency, “does that mean we free him?”

“I...” Rey let out a long breath. “I don’t know. I can’t reach him. He hasn't contacted me.”

Sitting together in the dimly lit hallway, the thread of grief hanging between them, Hux knew they could sit and talk all night, but it wouldn’t bring back Kylo, and it wouldn’t set him free. 

Before more could be said, Rey’s radio crackled with a pop and a hiss, making Hux start at the sudden intrusion of noise. “Rose to Rey, come in.” 

“You should answer that. Don’t leave her waiting,” Hux said, picking up his pack and flashlight. If he could, he would escape, slip away into the halls and corridors of Danvers and pursue whatever part of Kylo was left behind in this place. Maybe Hux deserved this, to be trapped here forever.

“Hux, don’t do this. Please, don’t go.” 

“I can’t put on a face for the cameras. Not when Kylo is out there waiting for me.” 

The radio crackled again, an unwelcome third voice that butted electronically into their space. “Repeat, this is Rose, come in Rey? Camera crew in tow, we’re ready to begin filming.” 

“Come with me! We can still find him, together.” 

Above him darkness yearned and stretched on, thousands upon thousands of square meters of empty building, of ghosts and memories, and yet Rey stood and held out her hand to him, offering to go with him. Still he hesitated, caught between shadows above and Rey in the glow of her flashlight, brown eyes somehow sparking like embers. 

He stared as the radio squawked and crackled, and finally reached out, taking her hand. It was warm and small and solid. “...I’ll come.” 

“It’s okay, we’ll find him and get the truth. That's why we’re here, isn’t it?” Rey quickly unclipped the radio from her belt with her free hand. “This is Rey.”

The reply was a crackling hiss. “Rey, we’re in Hall 5 heading to Hall 6 now, what's your location?”

“We’re in 6, we’ll meet you.” Rey slid the radio back onto her belt and together they stepped into the darkened halls of Danvers, their flashlights clicked on, forming twin points of light.

At the far end of the ward a herd of light sources, blinking equipment, flashlights and cameras moved towards them, and Rose broke away from the team and waved. 

Rey gave Hux’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll talk to the film crew. We can figure this out.” 

“I know.” 

Hux let Rey go gladly, remaining behind to lower his flashlight and let the lack of light swallow him up. 

Rey and Rose hurried to meet each other, and Hux could only just hear them talking, his own name filtering through the conversation along with an inquisitive look from Rose. 

He took a few more steps backwards, as if slinking further into the shadows might obscure him. He had agreed to stay with her, and an ugly part of himself thought quietly he would need a medium. The entire scale of Danvers seemed insurmountable, even if he had weeks to search.

As once upon a time, he had. He’d had search teams, dogs on the scent, and still, somewhere Kylo’s body was hidden. That was the cold truth of it all, paranormal or not, none of it changed the fact that Kylo lay forgotten somewhere in these walls.

“Where am I?” 

Though the voice sounded from far away, it pierced through Hux’s thoughts like a knife, hot bright hope and dreadful fear. His gaze jumped to the film crew gathering around Rey and Rose, but none had stopped talking. None of them noticed.

He swung round, his flashlight shining across the white painted walls, catching on plastic room numbers and then the wall broke, giving way to a pass-through between the main corridor and an access hall and his light found the silhouette of a man. Hux raised the beam of his light revealing the figure, and though he could barely make out loose pants and a simple white tunic, he felt rooted to the spot. Unable to step forwards or backwards, unable to speak, Hux starred in utter horror at the sight.

Kylo was beautiful in the dim glow, he had always been the most beautiful man Hux had thought. But his face. 

His face was in ruin. 

Blood streaked down from the jagged wound that bisected his face, a painter's palette of sticky black, fresh reds, and shades of viscera that shone wetly in the light. His eyes were hollow, as if Kylo, though he looked straight at him, couldn’t see Hux. As if Hux were the ghost. 

Hux mouthed the shape of Kylo’s name and took one step forward, the primal fear of seeing the dead and the urge to rush to his husband overwhelming. His flashlight flickered, a quick shutter effect making the ruined spectre of Kylo look even stranger.

“Hux?” Rey’s voice called.

Hux turned, startled, voice stretched with shock. “Rey he’s —” He turned back to the corridor. His flashlight flickered a few more times before the beam steadied, but the figure was gone. 

He stared in disbelief, numbly walking to the access corridor, ignoring calls to wait. He reached the spot where Kylo had been standing. There was nothing. No footprints, not a drop of blood. Nothing. On either side of him Danvers stretched on, empty and dark, the only sounds now those of Rey and Rose as they ran after him. More flashlights joined his, but for all the extra light, nothing was revealed. 

“What happened, what did you see?” Rose asked, bursting into his field of vision to his left and peering into the darkness, her flashlight’s beam crossing Hux’s. 

Rey appeared to his right, and Hux gave her a look. “I saw him.” 

“What?” Rey and Rose spoke in unison, though Rose also looked deeply curious and uncomfortable.

Hux glanced at Rose. “She told you?” Rose nodded hesitantly, and that was enough for Hux. It didn’t matter what anyone thought. “I saw him. I want to reach out to him. No more chasing apparitions. We need to bring him to us.”

“You mean a spirit board session?” Rose asked. 

Hux nodded again. It was the most effective method he knew of to call up a spirit, though he didn’t know why. Perhaps even the ghosts themselves respected the tradition. Even Kylo had agreed and had used ouija boards. Now it was time to find out if he would answer to one. 

Rey’s brows came together. “You know spirit boards aren’t that simple. It might not work, it might not even be him.”

“What choice do we have?” Hux asked, forcing Rey to hold his gaze. “We’re going to have to get away from the film crews. They’ll want to capture as much of this as possible. If Kylo is here—” 

"I won’t let them film it.”

“But how do we get away from them?” 

“It's me they’re following. I’m the one scheduled for the first ‘scare’. Rose, you’ve done spirit board sessions before, the two of you can get it set up.” 

The sound of the film crew was like like a herd of chattering cattle, and it was coming closer. Hux glanced back the way they’d come, frowning. “You can’t go. Rey, we’ll need you as a medium,” 

She shook her head. “I’ll join you as soon as I can, I promise. We can’t all get away and you’re right, if Kylo even would reach out to us with that many people and pieces of equipment, we can’t let him film this.” Rey smiled and stepped forward, catching Rose’s hand and squeezing it. “Go on, Rose. Get it ready.”

She turned away from them just as the film crew appeared at the other end of the corridor, loud and full of questions. Hux could hear the man from before, Bullman, the one in the ill-fitting suit, complaining breathlessly. He would've taken some satisfaction in seeing the man red-faced from his chase, but Kylo occupied the forefront of his mind, even as Rey threw herself to the wolves.

“Ah, there you are,” Bullman said, managing to convey fatherly displeasure and tacky annoyance at the same time. “Something go bump over here?”

Rey gave them both one more look, then headed down the corridor. “Sorry about that, everyone.”

Bullman apparently wasn’t one to accept apologies gracefully. “Look, we’ve been filming identical hallways for forty minutes now. We’ve got our first queue to hit here —” 

“I know. I thought I had felt a presence moving towards Hall 7.” 

“You felt something? A presence?” Instantly everyone was shuffling around, with Bullman snapping orders. “Quick, get the cameras up, c’mon! Can you repeat that —”

“Hold on, damn it, let me get the night vision focused —” 

“Come on, before they realize,” Hux said, capturing Rose’s wrist and moving away from the sudden activity, the crew closing in on Rey like sharks on bloodied water.

**20:00 October 31st, 2009** **  
** **Danvers State Hospital** **  
** **Danvers Massachusetts**

Rose and Hux walked in silence, finding their path unimpeded for the most part, though as they drew nearer and nearer to the central admin building, the sound of people began to echo back to them from up ahead. They were approaching the main crowd. 

“Here, I’d rather skip going through there if we can.” Hux said, gesturing to the side before Rose could turn out of the first ward and into the administration building. 

“What? Is there a way around?” Rose asked. 

“There’s always a roundabout.”

Hux turned off towards an access corridor, and then to the right, away from the main building. His strides brisk and shoulders set, he walked as if each step was one step closer to Kylo. 

Rose followed, confused. “We don’t want to go up front?”

“It seems like it’s the wrong direction, but it circles back. Like I said, a roundabout. We’re over where the coal room and furnace for this half of the building used to be. Unless they’ve barred off the tunnels, it’ll go straight to the morgue. Ah — yes, here.” The floor began to slope downwards, until they reached a small flight of stairs and ramp, similar to the ones Hux had descended earlier.  
  
“Do you still remember that much?” Rose asked. 

Hux’s light was steady and straight ahead on the cement floor, but Rose’s constantly wandered off course, following lines of the architecture on the plain concrete walls, and flicking to anything that seemed to stand out. “Yes, and no.” 

Hux pulled open a door at the bottom of the stairwell, leading them down into a sub level where ducts for the modern heating and cooling snaked above them. Here he paused to turn on the lights. The large fluorescents were spaced about fifteen feet apart, and they came on with loud, sequential clicks all the way down the corridor, spilling sterile light onto the floor. Even the modern renovations couldn’t make the tunnels feel warm or welcoming.

Rose followed him as he strode down the hall. “I studied the map of the modern building, but I still feel lost. We had a lot of areas off limits the first couple times they gave us access. They said they were still doing remodels. Guess they weren’t bullshitting.” 

They reached the end of the corridor and Hux pushed at a set of double doors that opened without protest. The room they revealed was cavernous.

“It’s safe,” Rose said when Hux hesitated, misinterpreting his pause. “I set things up down here, it’s okay.”

Taking a breath, Hux nodded and stepped inside. Just beyond the threshold, the cement turned into tile, not only on the floor, but up the walls as well, a vintage hospital mint green that marked any particular area as having once been strictly medical. He doubted any of it was original, making it seem that much more garish a nod to the aesthetics of the room’s original function. Work lights cast a low-watt glow at the room’s heart, illuminating a small wooden table and four chairs. A spirit board lay in the middle of the table, the planchet resting on its surface. 

His memory of the place was superimposed over the cavernous room, confusing. Instead of broken, tiles crunching underfoot, new tiles winked with glassy flashes, gleaming with fresh glaze. Where there had been rusting tables and ominous metal cabinets, there were empty walls, free of hiding places, but Hux found himself swinging his own flashlight around, compelled to check the dark corners where shadows hung.

Rose’s sudden, bright exclamation was at odds with the setting. “—Here! See, just like I was talking about!” 

“What?” Hux tore his eyes off the spirit board set up and moved across the room to Rose. “I’m sorry, I must have been lost in my own thoughts.” 

He blinked away the double image of the morgue as he remembered it, forcibly dragging himself back into the present. He followed Rose across the room to one of the walls Hux had ignored, shining her light into an open access in the wall, a square hole the size of an apartment air conditioner, showing off its brickwork lining. 

“More unfinished construction?” Rose asked, looking over her shoulder at Hux quizzically. When he frowned, she smiled, that classically reassuring look Hux found disquieting when turned on himself, so he ignored it. “Don’t worry if you don’t know. It’s a lot to take in, but I can’t believe they haven’t finished construction so close to their scheduled opening.”

He didn’t answer, moving closer to the hole. It was at waist height, and it looked like an ordinary enough access panel, wires running in both up and down, but there was no door. He stretched a hand out to touch the old bricks that lined the access shaft, running his fingers over their rough texture. He could feel the cool air from above them. He leaned in, shining the flashlight into the space just behind the access panel opening. There was a rusted metal wheel with a rope, as one might see over a well, and thick metal rails, the miniature version of those used by trains. 

“Ah. That explains it. It’s not a mistake. These are original to the building. Clever idea, using them to run the cabling.” 

“Wait, really?” Rose asked, her eyebrows raising as she leaned in to peer at the opening.

Hux nodded as he took a step back. “There are more of them. Or were. They’re sealed up by now, I’m sure.”

“Sealed up? Why?”  
  


* * *

_“Do you think any of them still work?” Kylo asks, hitting the old button beside the dumbwaiter._

_ Hux wonders briefly what Kylo hopes to accomplish considering there’s no electricity running in the building, but he doesn’t ask. The night is getting long, and here on the top floor with all the broken windows, there’s no barrier between them and the night air. To be indoors and yet not protected is uncanny. _

_ “You’re the one pressing the button, you tell me.” Hux replies. He puts his flashlight in his mouth and crouches down, pressing on the dumbwaiter’s floor. The whole moves unsteadily under his hands, creaking horribly. The box is the size of an elevator, but made entirely out of wood and held up by little more than rope and rusted metal. Most dumbwaiters are for transporting smaller loads, but this one is obviously meant for bigger things than a loaf of bread or bag of laundry. _

_ Kylo flashes a smile that Hux’s flashlight casts into strange shadows. “It moves. That’s close enough to a ‘yes’ for me.” He sticks out a large foot and tests the dumbwaiter’s wooden floor, pushing on it with his boot for barely a moment before climbing onto the thing entirely. _

_ Hux grabs his flashlight and shoots to his feet, shocked. “Kylo! Get off that! You absolute moron, it could go at any second!” _

_ The dumbwaiter lurches downward, the sound of grating metal loud in the silence, and Kylo rocks unsteadily before straightening himself. He's decidedly several inches lower. _

_ “Get off of it! Now!” Hux shouts. He drops his flashlight and seizes Kylo by the arm. The dumbwaiter creaks ominously, and Hux’s heart plummets into his stomach. “I’m serious!” _

_ “Okay, okay, I’m fine, it’s not going anyplace!” Kylo protests, but he climbs up all the same. “I’m okay, don’t freak out.” _

_ “Don’t freak out?!” _

_ The radio crackles with static. “Team 3 to Hux? We just recorded an unusual noise.” _

_ Hux lets go of Kylo’s arm and waves sharply at his flashlight against the wall, a short pick-that-up gesture. It’s a clear indicator for the idiot to stay put. “Disregard Team 3, noise accounted for. Expect more.” _

_ “Ten-four.” _

_ Kylo scoops up the flashlight and immediately jams his hand in the open space over the top of the dumbwaiter. He pushes hard on the top of it, and more tortured screams come from the pulleys. _

_ “Would you stop?” Hux asks over the squeal of rusted metal, angry. “Bollocks to all this dangerous teenage shite, what in hell are you trying to do? Kill me?” _

_ Kylo shoots him a look. “Don’t be dramatic. This goes down into the tunnels. I want to go down.” He pushes with a grunt of effort, working the dumbwaiter loose. _

_ “You want me to willingly lower you in a dumbwaiter meant for transporting corpses into tunnels that, if you recall, aren’t fully mapped or accessible, which, if you manage to reach without falling to your death or getting stuck in the walls, I may not able to pull you back up!” _

_ “It won’t get stuck.” _

_ “Is your brain on vacation? How do you know?” _

_ “Because...” Kylo pauses, then shrugs helplessly. “Because I know. Hux, this feels important. I need to go.” _

_ Hux’s head thumps back against the plaster wall. He can’t understand what’s gotten into his husband, but when Kylo gets like this, Hux can’t win. “...Take the video camera. I’d rather lose a camera in than you.” _

_ “The camera? Are you sure?” Kylo asks, eyes wide. The camera had cost them half a year’s salary. _

_ “I’d rather lose a camera than lose you,” Hux repeats firmly. He slips the strap from around his neck, and holds the camera out. _

_ Kylo’s smile is more lopsided this time, more himself. He exchanges the camera for a kiss, and quickly sets the thing up on the floor of the dumbwaiter. He lowers it down slowly, using the old rope. Hux flinches at the awful grating noise. It seems to go on _ _ for ages, each scream in time to Kylo’s well-defined biceps flexing, his arms dragging on the rope, lowering the platform down farther and farther._

* * *

“It’s a dumbwaiter, sort of a manual elevator. There used to be others, for patients,” Hux said. He put a finger to the the little wheel and forced it to spin, the high pitched whine of rusted metal loud in the room. “I’m surprised they’ve left any in at all...”


	8. The Good Doctor

**  
Art by [@ArsTyrannus](https://twitter.com/arstyrannus/status/1223732612851818497) **

**20:37 October 31st, 2009** **  
** **Danvers State Hospital** **  
** **Danvers Massachusetts**

“Want to have a seat?”

Hux blinked. “What?”

Rose walked to the small table near the center of the room. She leaned over one of the chairs to adjust the spirit board, pulling it toward her, then nudging it away. “I set it up, but it doesn’t feel quite right. Maybe we should slide the table back a little?”

Reminded of the fact that this was not only an ex-morgue but a dressed set, Hux’s brow furrowed. With another, closer look, he noticed what he hadn’t before. Around the perimeter, almost hidden along the walls, were cameras and recorders. Their tiny power lights left miniscule red and blue glows against the tiles, hard to see if one was distracted. They were watching. They would preserve everything mercilessly.

“It’s not the board,” he said, pointing. “It’s those. I want them gone. We have to move them.”

“Move them?” Rose glanced in the direction indicated, and her mouth made an O. “But they’re — The Travel people set those up, they aren’t mine. I don’t think we’re supposed to touch them.”

“I don’t want them here!” He didn’t mean to snap. He pressed his lips together, exhaling through his nose. They’d find Kylo, Rey was on her way, he just had to wait a few minutes more. “I’m sorry. I just —”

“It’s okay, I get it. It’s private, right?” 

Hux nodded, grateful, and Rose nodded back. “Let’s move them, then.”

She immediately crossed to the closest camera, turning it carefully toward the wall. “There, now they can’t get too mad, and nothing’ll get taped.”

He went to a recorder, picked it up and shut it off. “Thank you.”

“No big deal.” Rose shrugged in a sweet way, already heading to the next camera. “I hope we find him..”

“So do I.”

“Do you think... Do you think it’ll be just him? I mean, there must be a lot of spirits here. It’s a hospital, and you know what those are like. Haunted. Plus there was that fire.”

“Fire?” Hux set down the recorder and looked back at her, puzzled. “What fire?”

“The fire that must have killed those poor people. You know.” She brought both hands up in front of her, limp at the wrists, in imitation of what Hux thought was a ghost. “ ‘Smoke is coming’.”

Hux’s nose scrunched up. “That’s not what she sounded like.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to tease her. I haven’t heard it, I only read what you wrote in your book. Oh!” Rose brightened, as excited as she’d been the first time he’d met her. “I wanted to lead the investigation in that room! The one where you recorded the EVP!”

The room — the stool. The laminated paper. “That was you? You printed out that page?”

Rose beamed. “You saw it? I’m kind of embarrassed, though. It must seem silly, trying to induce spiritual contact with a photocopy. Especially the victims of a fire.”

“Rose, there’s no record of a fire here at Danvers, certainly not one that killed multiple people.” He moved across the room to the second recorder. He didn’t want anyone intruding on Kylo. Nobody would make a spectacle of his husband. “Maybe it was a small fire in one room, perhaps with one casualty, but I don’t remember reading about such a thing.”

“No? Me neither.” She reached the other and started to turn it, the tripod’s rubber feet stuttering over the floor. “Maybe the lady wasn’t saying smoke! You said in your book that some people heard something else. What did they hear? Smock? Stoke?”

* * *

_ The wall heater is on full blast, the warm air wafting through their tiny living room. Delicious zephyrs of heat roll over Hux’s back as he sits in front of their desktop computer, composing a post to the First Order’s Yahoo group. The timeline for next week’s investigation is critical. If he doesn’t submit it today, someone is going to claim they didn’t see it and not show up. They can’t afford to be short-handed. This will be their first big case, they need to do it right. _

_ “They used to put people in ice baths,” Kylo says suddenly. _

_ “Hm?” Hux pauses, the click of the keyboard falling silent. “What, love?” _

_ Kylo is curled up in the chair in the corner, the one he put together with a floor lamp he found behind their apartment, near the dumpster. His long legs are draped over one of the arms, his black-socked feet bouncing ever so slightly, a pile of photocopies in his lap. He pulls on a lock of hair, twisting it. “In Danvers. They would put ‘excited’ patients into ice baths.” _

_ Hux purses his lips. They’ve been to numerous haunted sites — locations with murders, depravities, even the Lizzy Borden house — but something about Danvers State Hospital is clearly bothering Kylo. _

_ “What were they hoping to achieve?” Hux asks, deciding to follow the thread along further to see what it reveals, but Kylo doesn’t directly answer, instead flipping through the stack of library printouts. _

_ “‘They’, said a ‘cure’, but they tortured people. Men like Dr. Bonner, Dr. Snoke, Dr. Sheffield. They retired in luxury after decades of putting people through ice baths, electroshock, seclusion, lobotomies and calling it a cure.” Kylo’s voice picks up intensity as he speaks, heat coloring his words as he rifles agitatedly through the papers. _

_ “They didn’t have a better means I suppose, most early medical practices were barbaric —” _

_ “Yeah, well, those people usually died without getting medical treatment. I don’t think anyone was going to die without a lobotomy.” _

_ Hux holds up his hands in surrender and rises from his seat, crossing the room to Kylo. “All right, what’s going on?” _

_ Hux’s fingers brush across Kylo’s hand to take away the papers, and then Kylo is snaking his arms around Hux’s waist. With his free hand, Hux pets Kylo’s hair. It’s getting longer again, not just long enough to hide Kylo’s ears, but to brush his shoulders. Hux loves it long, loves to play with the long thick locks. Kylo leans into his touch, his cheek against Hux’s stomach. _

_ “Sometimes I think… if things had been different, I might have been locked in an ice bath or lobotomized,” Kylo whispers, a tired honesty in his voice that speaks to more than just a traumatic past. _

_ “You’re here now. That won’t happen.” _

_ Kylo doesn’t seem to hear him. “I’m afraid of the spirits there. They weren’t just killed, they were abandoned and left in that place to rot.” _

_ “Shh.” Hux smooths his hand over Kylo’s hair, holding him as best he can. “No one is ever going to do that to you, love. I promise I’ll keep you safe.” _

* * *

“Rose? Hux?” Rey’s voice echoed down to them, Hux turned his head towards the sound. From the stairwell to the right, the one he and Rose had avoided, came the dim glow of a flashlight bobbing in time with Rey’s descent. 

Hux glanced at Rose. Rey could be alone, but what if she wasn’t?  
  
“Guys?” Rey’s voice called again just as she stepped into the morgue. “Oh, there you are. Why didn’t you answer me?”

“Are they with you?” Hux asked, anxious.

Rey gave him a look, smirking. “Who do you think I am? If I don’t want someone to follow me, they don’t.”

“We’re not talking about you sneaking out of your bedroom after curfew.”

Rey grinned. “No, but I was pretty darn good at that, too.” She lifted her flashlight, shining it on the table, her expression smoothing into something more serious. “Is everything ready? We’ve probably got about an hour, maybe less. That guy Bullman is really keen to find something cool to shoot, and he’s gonna barge down here sooner rather than later.”

Rose nodded in agreement with Rey’s sentiment, coming to stand beside her. “How did you ditch him anyway?” 

Rey smiled and though it was a small gesture, Hux didn’t miss the way she looked at Rose and brushed her fingers across Rose’s hand before moving past her to the table. “I led him to Poe.” 

“You’re going to owe him for that!” Rose laughed. “Poor Poe!”

Hux snorted. “If anyone deserves to deal with John Bullman, it’s Dameron. Now can we get going?”

Rey shot him a look, though there was little heat behind it, and Hux and Rose joined her at the table. Hux pulled out the chair to the left of the Ouija board, the wooden legs scooting softly over the smooth tile floor. He took off his coat and draped it over the back of the chair before sitting down. The stairs were to his left, the blank wall to his right. Behind him was a corridor similar to the one he'd just entered from, and he wondered whether the doors down that one were locked.

“Just to make sure we’re on the same page, I’m going to lead the communication, okay?” Rey said as she took a seat in front of the board.

“You’re our best chance,” Hux said, rolling up the sleeves of his button-down shirt. “It makes the most sense.”

Rose claimed the chair to Rey’s right. The fourth chair, the one facing away from the tiled corridor, was empty. Beyond it, the long tunnel stretched backwards, too dark to even see the double hospital doors Hux had opened before. 

Beside him, Rey closed her eyes and took deep, even breaths. Both of them watched her in silence, until at last she opened her eyes. “Rose, turn off some of the lights please?”

Obediently, Rose got up and went around the table, turning off all of the work lights except two. The bright ring of light dimmed to a soft glow over the table. She was just about to take her seat when Hux spoke up. 

“Wait — The light in front of the chair. Turn it off.” 

Rey looked at Hux curiously. 

“Kylo always kept the open space for the spirits in the dark. If we’re calling Kylo, we should use the same method he would.” 

“You’re right. If that’s how Kylo did it, that’s how we’ll do it,” Rey responded, giving Rose a nod. 

Rose got up, and the light shining directly onto the empty chair was turned off. Instantly, darkness consumed the empty chair, obscuring it in shadow. The emptiness of the corridor behind it seemed to reach out, the blackness a singular road stretching out all the way to the table. 

“Let’s begin.” 

Rey placed both her hands on the small wood planchette, only her fingertips perched on the edge. Hux followed, his pinky just touching her index finger. Rose’s petite hands joined last, closing the circle and obscuring the heart shape of the planchette, leaving the magnifying glass at its center visible. 

Rey cleared her throat and pushed the planchette towards the top of the board, the word HELLO visible through the planchette’s glass. “We call out to Kylo Ren to join us tonight.” 

Beneath his shirt, the crystal pendulum was a warm weight. Hux licked his lips, his tongue catching on their dryness. 

Rey waited, then asked, “Kylo? Are you here with us?” Another pause. “Kylo if you’re here, reach out to us. We want to find you.” 

Hux tensed. Her voice seemed to stretch in the space, echoing strangely around the high-ceilinged room, but nothing moved. Nothing shifted or loomed. 

“Kylo… Hux is here. You can reach out to us here —” 

Hux yanked his gaze up from the board. Somewhere in that ribbon of shadows stretching back to the tunnels, something squeaked. It sounded like one of the double doors had been blown open by the wind, but there was no movement in the air. 

“Kylo?” Hux whispered.

Rey glanced at him before focusing her attention back to the board. “Kylo, if you’re here, show us it’s you.” 

Silence stretched on. The planchette lay still. 

“Do you feel anything yet?” Rose asked in a hushed tone, glancing nervously between Rey and Hux. 

“Yes, but… I don’t know —” 

“So you do feel him,” Hux cut Rey off sharply. 

Kylo would have glowered and tried to pick a fight, but Rey only frowned and gave Hux a reproachful look. “I do. But it's not that simple, it’s like… he’s here, but not? I don’t know, Hux —” 

Suddenly the planchette trembled. 

“Is that him?” Hux whispered.

Rey shook her head. “Spirit, we recognize you. Who are you? Why are you here?”

Hux felt the planchette start to tug to the right. He could feel it was Rey doing the work, using her hands to push the planchette across the board, but her eyes were locked dead ahead as the planchette looped across the letters to spell out H-O-M-E. 

“Home? Do you want to go home?” Rose asked, and then the planchette was sliding again though Rey’s eyes never fell to it as it came to rest over the word NO. 

“...Is this your home?” Rey asked next.

Hux wondered what sort of person would call this place home, as the planchette stopped above the word YES. “Ask the spirit if Kylo is here.” 

“Are there other spirits here?” 

Rose’s voice was hushed. “There're a lot of spirits here.” 

Suddenly one of the cameras perched about the room on raised tripods went off, the flash a bright burst of light that made Rose squeak in surprise, and even Hux jumped in his seat as spots danced in his vision.  
  
“Where is Kylo Ren! Where is his spirit?” Hux called out, spurred on by the sudden sense of activity around them, he ignored Rose and Rey’s anxious looks towards him. 

“Hux, let the spirits come, we’ll find Kylo,” Rey replied, but then she was staring to the right of Hux, looking at something neither he nor Rose could see. The planchette began to move again, sliding awkwardly between letters, the words seemingly slow and painful. 

“I-n-p-a-t-….. Inpatient.” Rose read aloud as the planchette came to rest over the last T. “Does it mean impatient? We need to wait?”

“No. I think it said what it means.” Rey looked grim and almost sick at the words, but continued on regardless. “Is Kylo Ren an inpatient?”

“We don’t have time for this. We need to find him, Rey. We have to call out for him —”

“Wait, Hux, look!” 

Rey’s hands were still doing the work of the spirits, moving the planchette to each letter, but it was faster now, and sounds echoed from the tunnels beyond as the planchette spelled out HERE.  
  
“Kylo?” Hux asked, feeling like finally Kylo might be within his reach, but then the planchette was moving again, sliding to the large print GOODBYE emblazoned across the bottom of the board. “No! No! We’re not ending this!” He seized the plachette, yanking it away before it could reach the goodbye text. 

Rey pulled it back. “Hux, you can’t interfere! We need to wait for Kylo to reach out to us —” 

Suddenly Rose made a startled yelp and let go of the planchette. Hux felt something brushing over the top of his fingers and jerked back his hands as if burned. From the way Rey let go as well, he guessed the two women could also feel the ghostly touch.

Hux looked to Rey, who nodded, eyes huge. His gaze snapped back to the board. “Kylo!”

The planchette dragged heavily across the board as if by great effort, though no one’s hand was there to move it. The three of them stared in silence as the heart shaped piece crawled along. 

“What are you trying to tell us? We want to help you,” Rey urged suddenly. 

The planchette continued its halting path, but Hux’s eyes were locked on the chair in front of him. The shadows there moved, visibly fluctuating, expanding as if taking a breath.  
  
“L,” Rey said, reading the indicated letters aloud. “…...E…” 

And Hux could see Kylo’s face, thin and washed out as if through a veil. His jaw dropped, and the planchette moved with more force, sliding across the board with the shuddering unease of shaking hands instead of great effort. 

Rose leaned back in her seat, Kylo’s hands atop the planchette visible now, though faintly, her dark eyes huge. “A... V... E,” she read along with Rey. "... Leave?"

Hux’s throat closed up. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Kylo. The form flickered again like he had in the hallway, like an old recording on playback, but with each flicker he became more clear, and Hux could see his lips moving, pulling at the dreadful wound, mouthing something. Kylo’s eyes locked on Hux’s, and his voice became audible. 

“Leave —” 

Hux’s voice broke free in a rush of fear, but not for himself. “Kylo? Where are you?!”

“He’s coming —”

“Let me help you!” 

The sound of doors slamming ricocheted out of the corridor behind Hux, but Hux still stared at Kylo as his eyes flicked to the side, widening at something behind Hux, his shattered face twisted into a mask of fear. 

“RUN!”

Hux surged to his feet and lunged to try to touch him, hold him, and something crashed into the room, wind whipping through, slamming him back into his seat. Tripods and work lights crashed to the ground, bulbs bursting before they smashed against the tile, and Rose yelped as Hux’s fingers closed on empty air. Roiling blackness drenched the room as Hux turned just as Rey and Rose were thrown back, their chairs shoved violently away from the table.

He snapped back around, glaring at the ouija board, fury welling up hot and bright. He shouted into the darkness as if it was a physical thing he could fight, fists slamming onto the table. “WHERE IS HE!? KYLO!” 

Something in the storm chuckled just behind his shoulder and hot breath brushed the back of his neck before it vanished into the roaring wind. He stumbled away, and the planchette shot across the ouija board, flying from letter to letter in quick, savage motions.

O-K-E-S-N-O-K-E-S-N-O-K-E

Rey scrambled to her feet and ran awkwardly back to the table, hair torn loose and snapping at her cheeks as she grabbed the planchette. She called Kylo's name just as Rose stumbled to Rey, nearly colliding with her.

E-S-N-O-K-E-S-N-O-K-E-S-N

“Who are you? What happened to Kylo!?” Rey shouted, her voice high and scared, clinging to the planchette as it looped wildly through the same series of letters.

S-N-O-K-E-S-N-O-K-E

“Where is he?” Hux slapped his hands over Rey's on the planchette, and the thing thrashed like a wild animal. “WHERE. IS. HE?” Spiraling black rage suffused his voice, made him murderous, and abruptly the planchette broke its path.

K-E-S-N-O-K-4-1-3-4-1-3-4-1-3-4-1-3-4-1-3

Each motion was unhinged and aggressive, and finally Rose snatched at the planchette, too, cursing as it evaded her.

1-3-4-1-3-4-1-3-4-

”We have to make it stop! We have to close the board! Hux, stop!” Rey yelled over the roaring of the wind.

Rose’s hands slapped on the planchette just as Hux let go, and the two women heaved forward, forcing the planchette to the black GOODBYE text. 

The wind vanished. Hux's ears popped as the pressure dropped, the silence so heavy he could taste it. He took a hesitant step away from the table, staring at the destruction. Broken glass littered the floor. Expensive cameras and recorders were in pieces, plastic housings cracked, lenses shattered. The cables were a tangled mess, and some of the tiles were chipped. One lone light lay on its side on the floor, bulb somehow intact and valiantly shining, trying to force light into the darkened room. 

Rey and Rose clung to each other, both glittering with broken glass, Rey’s hair knocked from its bun into a loose mess around her shoulders. Rose's hand left red smears on Rey's forearm, and Hux frowned. 

Rose looked worriedly back. “Hux? Hux are you okay?”

“I… I’m fine, yes.. I’m sorry I..." Oh. "I have to go.”

“But...” Rose was bleeding, cradling her palm. 

Rey touched his arm, clutching at his sleeve. “What? You can’t leave, you saw what happened —”

“I’m sorry.” Hux cut her off as he turned towards the stairway Rey had used. There, on the floor, conveniently placed just past the broken glass, was a flashlight. It was dim, but the beam shone towards the stairwell, a finger made of light. He strode across the room and scooped it up. He threw one last look back towards Rey and Rose, then dashed up the stairs.

“Wait! Hux no! You said we’d find him together! HUX!”

He broke into a run as he heard her behind him, both of them calling for him to wait. Hux didn’t care, he pressed on further, tripping as the stairs suddenly came to the first floor landing and only just catching himself, Rey still shouting after him, Rose’s voice not far behind. He crashed into the double doors that marked the first floor landing, throwing them open suddenly, and Hux nearly collided with John Bullman and the TV crew.

“Hey! There you are — HEY!” John shouted as Hux shoved past him. 

Hux heard the moment Rey and Rose caught up, the landing blocked by the Travel teams. He darted to the next flight of stairs, pausing only once to look back, to make sure they weren't following. His eyes met Rey's.

“Hux!” Rey cried, but Hux turned and left.

He took the stairs two at a time, fear, adrenaline, and the thought of finding Kylo pressing him onward, even though his feet ached and his lungs burned. He was out of shape, too long in an office, in a teaching position out of the field, but he wouldn’t fail Kylo, not again. 

Snoke had intended the message for him, Kylo had reached out to him, he was going to do this no matter what. 

Hux burst onto the third floor, clutching his aching chest, but unwilling to stop yet as he looked around the darkened floor. It was all new, so little of the original Danvers left up here. They were probably offices for the Dean now, for tenured professors and faculty. Even the floors were carpeted and muffled the sound of his feet, as if he didn't exist. It was all a cover up, it was still here, he had to find it. There had to be a way to the fourth floor.

A way to room 413.

The fourth floor was small, situated at the peak of the administration building. When he and Kylo had been there, so much of it had been deemed unsafe. They weren't technically allowed, but they'd gone anway, and Hux remembered room 413 vividly. It was seared into his mind. 

* * *

_ “REN!” Hux shouts, his temper getting the better of him as he runs up to the fencing that divides the stairwell and cranes his neck, trying to peer into the gloom of the partitioned-off patients’ side. _

_ Kylo vanishes into the shadows of the upper floors, his footfalls echoing on the steps. _

_ The fencing is fastened ceiling to floor, and despite the rust and decay, is too strong and tall for Hux to get through. He grabs it anyway and yanks at it, rattling it uselessly. _

_ “FINE! Run off and pout!” Hux shouts into the darkness, pushing himself away from the fencing to storm down to the lower floor. He doesn’t have time to chase after Kylo and his melodramatic antics. _

_ Furious at his own husband, he stomps down the risers to the second floor, fuming. “I can’t believe him! Our entire savings spent on this, and he acts a fucking child!” Hux curses to no one but himself, but as soon as he hears it, he slows. “Oh, Ren…” _

_ He pulls his radio from his hip and holds down the button, waiting for the click that proves he’s broadcasting before speaking. “All teams, can someone locate Kylo?” He releases the button and waits in the stairwell for long moments. There are a lot of teams. Kylo is without a radio, but someone will find him. _

_ Minutes tick by, and worry starts to creep into his stomach, sickening. “All teams, this is Hux, do you copy?” _

_ “Copy.” _

_ ”Copy.” _

_ ”Read you loud and clear.” _

_ ”Yeah, team 3 copy.” _

_ “Copy.” _

_ A chorus of answers, each team responding, but not with the answer he wants. “Does anyone have eyes on Kylo?” _

_ A beat of silence and Hux closes his eyes, gripping the radio in his hand so tightly his fingers hurt. He takes a deep breath. He’s panicking over nothing. Kylo is probably just sulking, the moron. _

_ “Uhh, this is team 1. We don’t have a visual.” _

_ “Negative from team 4.” _

_ “Team 2… No sign, we’ll go look around our wing.” _

_ “Team 3 is looking now.” _

_ No. That’s not what he wants to hear. “Look harder.” _

_ “Copy that.” _

_ They’re not. They’re not looking harder — or they are, but they don’t know what he can be like. Kylo. When he gets upset, when he needs to hide — _

_ Radio chatter is a constant back and forth, all with the same result. No sign of Kylo. Each failure to find him drives another spike of nauseated worry through Hux’s guts, until he can’t stand there any longer. He can’t be the one in charge, not right now. He can’t just sit here and do nothing. He has to help. _

_ The stairs take him back up, up to the third floor. He can see flashlights in the gloom, can hear the teams talking about searching the rest of the rooms. Danvers is so long, it’ll take forever, but it doesn’t matter. Kylo isn’t on the third floor, Hux can tell. _

_ He continues up to the fourth floor, the smallest section of Danvers. It’s unsafe, of course; too many rooms too close to the roof, bats squeaking in holes in the ceiling. Hux doesn’t care. He edges his way down the hall, throwing open each door in turn, one by one. 401, 402, 403, Hux opens any door that still hangs on its hinges, shining his light around each room and finding nothing. Old files, knocked over furniture, rotting roof top. _

_ “Kylo! Come out!” _

_ 410, 411, 412. _

_ Still nothing. Someone on the radio calls. Another wing is clear with no sign of Kylo. _

_ Hux reaches the last room, door broken and hanging crookedly from the frame. He shines his flashlight across the empty space, and disappointment sours his stomach. It’s just another office. Full of waterlogged banker’s boxes, rat droppings, an odd ripped-up chair that wouldn’t have been out of place in a dentist’s office, and wooden cabinets against the wall. Detritus litters the floor, and Hux is about to leave to search the next room, when something winks, flashing red. _

_ Unnerved, he shines his light across the floor in a slow sweep, searching for that bit of red — and finding it. _

_ With slow, hesitant steps, Hux crosses the room, paper and old paint crunching beneath his shoes. The trash digs into his knees when he drops to the rotting floor, reaching down to pick up the pendant. He would know the long red crystal anywhere. _

_ How many nights had he played with it while Kylo slept, insomniac and stroking the little gem where it nestled in the dip in Kylo’s chest, unwilling to disentangle himself from Kylo’s limbs? Kylo would never leave it behind. He only ever took it off to use it for spirit work. It’s his prized possession, an heirloom from his grandfather, but now it's Hux who holds it in his hand, no sign of Kylo to be had. _

_ Another team reports in. No Kylo. _

_ Reaching into his pocket, Hux pulls out his phone and dials 911 with shaking fingers. _

* * *

  
“Kylo, Kylo...!” He almost didn't recognize his own voice. The hurt in it, the way it broke.

He forced his thoughts to the unfamiliar light in his hand, small and cheap, with batteries he wasn't sure would last, and realized he was vastly unprepared. He had nothing else. Even his phone was shattered beyond use. He had no radio, no tape recorder, no camera — but there was no going back. The flimsy flashlight would have to do.

He pressed onward, ignoring his screaming sense of pragmatism. This might not be his Danvers, but it wasn’t a suicide mission he’d thrown himself into. Danvers had proven over and over again that it was only as dangerous as he chose to make it. He could flood the place with light, could shout to any number of people that were milling around the building. The team felt worlds away, but he was only one floor up from the entire crew. He wasn’t here alone, not really. 

He should wait. He should call to Rey. Kylo mattered to her as much as he did to Hux.

But his feet didn't stop. Hux left the stairs and crossed the third floor, and he knew deep down he couldn’t bring anyone else. He was the one that needed to find Kylo. Kylo hadn't appeared to anyone when Hux wasn't there. It was Hux Kylo was searching for, just as Hux was searching for Kylo, and teams and equipment would only get in their way. Hux knew Danvers, Phasma had called it his, and while no one man could own the dark history or massive scale of the building, Hux’s influence was why its four walls still stood. It was his fault it was still here, but Danvers owed him for what it had taken. 

The door to the fourth floor stairwell seemed to come out of nowhere, appearing about a hundred yards away, standing open at the end of the long central corridor. It was the only staircase up to that small section above the front of the administration building.

In the shadows behind the doorway, something moved.

Hux sprinted to the stairs and ducked through the open door. The narrow staircase rose in a series of switchbacks, heading upwards to the crown of Danvers tower. He brandished the flashlight like a sword, stabbing it at the darkness as he charged up the stairs. Just as he reached the landing, he swung around the newel and stopped as a bit of white glinted at the top of the stairs. He was caught between floors, could barely see through the railings, but two figures stood at the final landing to the fourth floor.

“You —!” Hux choked.

White coat. White pants. The actor dressed as a doctor, the one that had found him when he had returned to Danvers, stood beside Kylo, wire-rimmed glasses blank in the beam of the flashlight. The old man’s withered hand gripped Kylo by the upper arm, like a parent dragging an unruly child to bed. Kylo pulled back, glancing toward Hux, eyes so huge Hux could see the whites around the brown, the ghastly slice along his face weeping blood. He opened his mouth, and the doctor yanked him back to drag Kylo through the doorway at the top of the stairs. The door swung shut with a bang, and Hux leapt forward, racing up the stairs. 

“Kylo!”

Hux reached the top of the stairs and threw the door open. He expected to see the hallway just as he had left it, littered with debris, window panes knocked out, ceiling sagging, but it wasn’t. Trash was scattered around, but it was crumpled paper tarps and cleaning supplies, spackle tubs and tools. Though the plaster was clean and the windows replaced, it was still dark, still somehow ruined. Hux’s jaw tightened, and he pushed past the feeling. Room 413 was waiting for him.

He pounded past doors, he didn’t even need to look at the numbers anymore, he would have known the way no matter what. The pendant bounced beneath his shirt, reminding him of all the times he’d begged police to come back, implored them to search up here, only to come away heartbroken and empty-handed. He knew the way, he had it memorized, but was that enough?

Heart pounding, he skidded to a halt at the end of the corridor. Room 413 was closed, the floor here free of clutter. The sign on the door now read ‘Storage’, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t need to check to know it was the right one. He used too much force on the door, and it banged against the wall, as he hurried through. Panting and wild eyed, he stepped further into the room, shining his light from wall to wall. Against one wall a ladder and several large tubs of paint were stacked, a drop cloth crumpled over part of the floor. Hux drew in a shivering breath, chest aching as it became evident there was no-one here. 

“Kylo? Where are you?” 

He turned in a circle, sweeping the flashlight over the floor just like he had four years ago. Maybe some other piece was waiting to be found, some token to prove he wasn’t chasing a hallucination, that Kylo was here and needed help. The actor had him, but why? Was the man a medium, too?

He reached the spot where the pendulum had been, the spot where his heart had dropped out of his chest, and he knelt to touch his hands to the new grey carpet. The floor was covered now, but maybe there was something. Maybe...

A cold whisper of a breeze danced over his fingers.

He froze, breath catching. “Kylo?” He waited, but the air remained soft and constant, freezing only near the floor. Hux hesitated, then stood, holding his hand up. The air closer to the ceiling was cold, but still. He touched the floor again, and the quiet stream of air caressed his hand.

Standing, he glanced around. There was no vent or ductwork to move the air. There was nothing but flat white walls and a bank of old floor-to-ceiling cabinets, the woodwork rough with age and neglect. No restoration had yet been done, and maybe never would be. But the cabinets and shelves ended abruptly at a panel of wood that ran from the floor and stopped just before the ceiling. There was no handle, nothing to grip. The panel might've once housed a long mirror or a portrait, but now it was only blank and out of place.

Crouching down, Hux examined the groove along the floor. The cold air from seeped out from the thin crack between the floor and paneling. Cautiously, he reached out and knocked on the wall.

The sound came back hollow, and as Hux held his flashlight to the crack between the panel and the floor, he saw there must have been space behind it. But there, just a handful of inches above the floor were four black spots in the wood, small holes around a discolored square. Screw holes and the imprint of where a handle would have been. He tried to shove his fingers into the crevice, and when it proved too small, he quickly turned back towards the room, heading straight to the tools left lying about. A crowbar was left sitting atop an industrial paint bucket and he snatched it without concern and just as roughly jammed it into the gap between panel and floor. Wood splintered and his hands hurt with the strain, but the wood gave a lurch and the gap widened. He worked at it, grunting with effort, until he dropped the crowbar and slid his hands under the wood, struggling to lift it. At last it seemed to come free and slid upwards into the wall above, and Hux was left staring into an empty cabinet.

He lifted his flashlight, searching. The cabinet was large. Too large to be a closet. It was the size of a small elevator. He took a step inside, determined to tear it apart to get the answers he needed. The floor rocked with a creaking groan, and Hux pulled his foot back, shocked.

Another dumbwaiter.

A hidden dumbwaiter built into the cabinetry, utterly lost in the design of the forgotten room. It had been here the whole time, even back then. Hux had missed it. Search dogs had been brought up and all circled the room in vain, the trail always ending here, but none of them had found this. They'd all failed.

He stared at the thing, mute. He’d chased Kylo’s shadow across hundreds and hundreds of meters of building, floor after floor, always running to or from, all for a dead end. His flashlight flickered. He slapped it against his palm. The flickering continued, and he smacked it again, and suddenly the entire room lit up with a brightness ten times that of the flashlight.

He whirled, and his jaw dropped.

The paint and dropcloth were gone. Wood floors gleamed unobscured by industrial carpet, warm with wax and the glow of an art deco light fixture. All around the room books were on shelves, charts mapping the human body were framed on the walls, jars of small things in formaldehyde acted as bookends. Beneath the old-fashioned lamp was the chair, the one from four years ago, but it was new. The leather of the seat was a supple hunter green, the fixtures shiny metal. There were brown leather straps attached to it.

There was a wide mahogany desk, too, the wood as polished as the floors, and as Hux stared, the wooden desk chair turned slowly round to reveal the doctor from the hallway, polishing his glasses on his white lab coat.

The old man chuckled. “Nothing to say?”

It was a man who existed only in the pages of vintage medical texts and black and white photographs — or at least, was supposed to, yet he was there in front of Hux, and the office was as it had once been. Snoke’s office. 

"This is impossible."

"It's not, I assure you. You're not insane, if that's what you're wondering. I'd know." The doctor smiled thinly, and Hux knew those ice blue eyes would have looked dead even in life. "I'm a bit of an expert on the subject."

"Expert? Expert??" It wasn't real, it couldn't be, but whether it was real or not, there was no world in which Hux would ever let a man like this bullshit him. Anger was tight vise on his chest. The man responsible for so much pain was so close. The one who’d done all this, who’d tortured Kylo until —

“You’re Dr Snoke,” he spat. 

“So you know who I am? Good.” Snoke rose from his chair and replaced his glasses on his crooked nose and reached for a cane leaning against his desk. “That will make things easier.”

"But you touched me! You’re alive, you’re not —"

Snoke only smiled.

“No... You’re dead.”

“I’m the head doctor,” Snoke said, smile vanishing. “This is my hospital. I’m in charge.”

Hux squared his shoulders as Snoke stepped around the desk. If the monster thought Hux would give ground first, he was sorely mistaken. “Where is Kylo? Where is my husband?” 

Snoke went to the strange chair, touching one of its arms, dragging his withered fingers over the leather. “He is here, but I am afraid the patient is not…. ‘fit’ for release.”

“Bullshit!” Hux surged forward, raising the flashlight threateningly. “He isn’t a patient and he isn't yours! Where is he!?” 

"Do you think you can harm me?" Snoke chuckled at him again and tapped his cane on the polished floor, drawing Hux’s gaze to the shiny gold end. Snoke’s firm posture and stride never faltered, and Hux could imagine exactly what the stick might be for. It certainly wasn’t to support the frailty of an old man. Hux’s arm drooped, lowering the flashlight. Snoke clicked his tongue, smug. “I can respect a man of science, Armitage. You and I are the same in some regards, so I’ll make you a deal.” 

“What you did isn’t science,” Hux snapped. “It’s barbarism masquerading as medicine.”

Snoke smirked and continued across the room to the dumbwaiter. “It’s easy to call it barbarism when you don't know anything about it,” he jeered, his eyes glittering. “But I'm nothing if not a student of the human condition. If you want him back, I’ll let you take him.”

“Where is he?” Even as he spoke, Hux knew the answer. He stared at the dumbwaiter. “He’s down there, isn’t he?” 

“Astute of you.” Snoke gestured with one of his crooked hands. "Be my guest. Of course, it won't be as easy as all that. What a terrible, useless experiment that would be."

Hux grit his teeth and went to the threshold. He looked down before taking his first step. If this was a hallucination, a trick of his mind, then he would be climbing into a decaying relic and lowering himself five stories to the tunnels below. No radio. No phone.

Snoke spoke up as if hearing his thoughts. "What choice do you have, Armitage? I won't make the offer again."

Taking a deep breath, Hux stepped into the box, feeling it shift beneath his weight. He turned to face the door, and Snoke raised his cane and used it to press a button set in the wall. A whir of something electrical arose and the box lurched downward, smoothing out with painful slowness as it descended. 

The last thing he saw in the room was Snoke’s smile as the old man slid from view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read this far, and thanks to Kyuu, and Kona for betaing this story, and thank you to Monster/ArsTyrannus, for both being a beta and doing the amazing Tales of Terror art.
> 
> The next chapter is going to be slow to come out, but it will be the thrilling conclusion at long last!


	9. Spider's Web

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accepting Snoke's challenge, Hux descends into the twisting tunnels beneath Davners, determined to find his husband, Kylo Ren, and set his spirit free.

**Chapter 8: Spider’s Web**

**Time: unknown** **   
** **Date: unknown** **   
** **Danvers State Hospital** **   
** **Danvers, Massachusetts**

The dumbwaiter lurched to a stop. Hux’s stomach dropped to his knees, and he stumbled into one of the car's walls. He pressed his palms flat against the smooth wood, harshly breathing stale air through his nose. Calm, he had to stay calm. 

The electrical hum of the pulleys ceased, and the box went completely still.

He moved the flashlight's beam around the small, claustrophobic carriage until he found the handle at the bottom of the door, the polished brass glinting in the light. He bent over and took hold, grunting as he heaved upward. It rose up far more easily than it had before, though the sound of its squeaking was loud enough to make Hux flinch. The noise echoed on long past the initial cause, and when he stepped out of the dumbwaiter, he saw why. 

Ahead of him, clean, whitewashed stone walls curved upward toward a ceiling of matching stone. The floor was cement, swept free of any dirt. There were no cracks, no construction tools or abandoned medical devices. The sound of the door's protest had bounced down the length of the bare walls, fading into the darkness ahead. 

Just beyond his light, the tunnel was pitch black. He waited to see if anyone or anything moved in the darkness, but he seemed to be alone. No mysterious noises or menacing figures approached. He hadn’t known what to expect, but solitude wasn’t it.

“Kylo? Kylo, I’m here!” 

Hux’s voice echoed down the tunnel. Somewhere in the gloom, something moved, skittering from his voice. Whatever it was, it was too big to be a rat. 

Perhaps not alone after all.

He stepped forward hesitantly, in case something else shifted in the tunnels ahead. When everything remained still, he gripped the flashlight tightly and ventured out of the dumbwaiter. He told himself he had only one fear left, and it had nothing to do with hospital ghosts. He had faced Snoke. He had been shoved, led astray, run in circles. They had stolen Kylo and he hadn’t stopped them. 

There was nothing more the dead could do to him. 

His pace was steady, within minutes the dumbwaiter was swallowed by the dark. Not even the flashlight could reveal it. He was in a tunnel with no visible end, like a hamster on a wheel. Without bread crumbs or even enough dust on the floor to show his progress, each step away from the dumbwaiter was a dangerous mistake.

Abruptly, a new tunnel opened to Hux’s left, a wide open archway leading to a formless, empty space. The path ahead of him was inscrutable. He turned around, uncertain which path to choose, his light flashing over the walls and down the inky darkness of the new branching. As he came full circle, once again facing front, his beam caught on a figure in the tunnel before him. 

His heart lifted for half a second, but it was immediately obvious that it wasn’t Kylo. The figure was apparently a man, with skinny arms and a shaved head, though the voluminous white hospital gown made it hard to tell. His back was hunched, and he paced in tight, nervous circles. The intrusion of the light didn’t seem to register. He didn’t look at Hux, just paced back and forth, back and forth.

Whatever psychosis the man suffered, Hux suspected it was profound. His erratic movements and dingy hospital gown flapping around his knees painted a sad and frightening picture. The actors earlier that day had tried to capture it, but had fallen far short of the mark. 

Hux knew he ought to feel compassion for the poor soul, alone in the darkness, but he wasn’t kind like Rey. He wasn’t empathetic the way Kylo had been. He looked at the patient and all he saw was the possibility of his own husband suffering. Maybe Rey could come and save the other trapped spirits, but Hux only cared about one.

Unwilling to risk going near the patient, Hux turned his light away and walked into the tunnel to the left. He passed through a set of doors and made note of them, attempting to memorize his route. He had mapped all of Danvers by hand once; he could map these tunnels. 

He sped up, and when he came to another turn, he didn’t jump when his light found the pacing figure of a man, walking in then out of the beam of his light. Another patient with a shaved head pacing tight circles inside the tunnel. 

Except — his back. The twisted spine. Hux had just seen him, but he couldn’t have gone in a circle.    
  
“I’m only heading straight,” Hux whispered aloud to himself. 

The patient’s head jerked up, his pacing ceased, and he came forward, bare feet shuffling on the stone. 

Hux backed away, but the man was quick despite his twisted spine. He put on a burst of speed and charged forward to catch up with Hux in an unnatural rush. Hux brought his arms up and let out a strangled shout, tripping as he tried to step backwards.    
  
He fell, hitting the ground with a choked gasp. His back took the brunt of his fall, the jolt knocking the flashlight from his hands. He flipped onto his stomach, scrambling away from where the patient must surely be. Darkness surrounded him, black as ink. He crawled to his flashlight, abrading his knees. He grabbed it and flipped it back on, whipping it around behind him.

The hallway was empty. 

“What...?”

He moved the beam, and his mouth fell open. The tunnel he crouched in smelled strongly of mildew and damp earth. Cobwebs thick enough to have become ropes of trapped dust hung from the cracked ceiling. The floor was a caked-over mess, lost to the dirt and grime of the dead decades.

The past was gone. 

“No!” His voice echoed down the empty tunnel, but no answer sounded, not even the shifting of rats in the shadows. He gave vent to his frustration and slammed the disgusting floor with the flat of his hand. “Damn it!”

Gritting his teeth, Hux climbed to his feet, surveying the tunnel. The place had been clean a moment ago; now it was filthy. Snoke’s office had gone through the same transformation, only in reverse.

It occurred to him that perhaps he wasn’t really in this tunnel. Maybe he’d fallen down the stairs earlier and hit his head, and this entire experience was a hallucination. Maybe whatever was happening was beyond his understanding — but fuck if he’d let it win.

He jogged the dark, dangerous length, tripping over dirt and broken flooring, one wrong step away from twisting an ankle. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter if he was hurt. He had to find Kylo. He had to force this place to show him where it was hiding his husband. He passed another intersection, ran through a third, shoved his way through another pair of double doors, rotten and soft —

— and everything was ghostly white in the dim light.

He slowed, nervous. The floor was clean again, the walls whitewashed and wiped down. There were no overhead lights. There were doorways, though. Some were ajar, some closed, they lined the walls, disappearing into the distance like a reflected hallway in a house of mirrors — and everywhere,  _ everywhere _ , there were patients. 

Some stood still as stone, some shuffled or paced in tired loops. Old, young, with hair and without, some toothless and pockmarked, some healthy and hale save for the glazed and unseeing look in their eyes. 

Hux swallowed, throat clicking loudly, and wondered at how the patients didn’t seem to hear even in the weighted silence. He went through the open doorway, breath fast and shallow. There were patients curled into the walls and corners on all sides. His flashlight did little to illuminate the gloom. He couldn't see much beyond its circular pool of yellow light.

Hux slowly started into the crowd — and it was definitely a crowd. He had seen the photos of Danvers at its height: two thousand patients stuffed into a hospital built for two hundred. The spirits here had lived that time first-hand; now they were trapped in it forever.

His heart lurched when a woman brushed past him. Her hair was frizzy and untamed; he could see matts in the wild locks. Her eyes stared right through him. He was the ghost here. 

Carefully, he crept forward, trying not to touch the patients. When at last he was past them, Hux turned back, shining his light once more over the crowd. On the last sweep of his light, a thread of fear snaked through his veins and the hairs on his arm stood on end. One patient, a tall emaciated man with a black eye and single point of puncture just above his tear duct that gave the tell tale signs of a barbaric treatment, stared in Hux’s direction. 

He hadn’t seen his husband among them, but he had to be sure. “...Kylo?”

The patients went still.

Slowly, every head turned to face him. Their dead eyes focused on him, glinting wetly in the beam of his flashlight.

He backed up, the step loud in the quiet.

A rustling sound rippled through the crowd, as though something was weaving through their bare legs, undulating beneath them. Hux held his breath, his heart hammering —

— and the crowd exploded into gibbering, shrieking motion.

He threw up his hands, uselessly. They hit him like a bus, like a freight train, like nothing at all. Their spiritual force slammed him into the wall, and he grabbed the doorframe to stay upright. Their presence was overwhelming, misery and desperation crashing into him like waves in a storm-whipped ocean.

“Let go of me! Get off!”

His shout fell unheard into the riot. He tried to shove through the crowd, but there were too many, all of them packed in, all reaching for him. They didn’t have corporeal forms, he didn’t understand how they could have a physical presence. They dragged at him, climbed him like he was a life raft. There were too many, too many hands, bodies, voices, all reaching out to him, all a hideous, unnatural weight, and he staggered beneath the force of it. His knees gave out, banging painfully to the stone floor.

“Stop —”

They pulled, they scratched, they screamed. They would either crush him or tear him apart. He lunged forward on all fours like an animal, survival scorching his nerves. Two buttons on his shirt popped as something grabbed the back of it. He wheeled to break loose, arm flying out to slap something that wasn’t there, and the pendulum swung free of his shirt. It rose in a graceful arc, seemingly suspended for a brief moment. It caught the light of his forgotten flashlight somewhere on the floor below and glowed red. 

A spectral hand reached for the glinting gem. 

“No… NO!” 

Hux clasped the pendulum to his chest, curling into a ball to protect it. It was hot against his palm, as though a live ember had settled into the pendulum’s core. Light peeked out from between his fingers. The pendulum in his hand glowed as if reflecting a ray of summer sun, but that was impossible. There was no light source down here. Something else was making it glow. 

Maybe something that could help him.

All his life, Hux had been searching for ghosts, and now it felt like they would tear him apart in their desperation to grab hold of something living. Groaning beneath the assault, panting into the clean floor, the anger rose again. He wasn’t a feral beast, he was better. Kylo still needed him. Danvers owed him a thousandfold for his suffering, and he wouldn’t be its victim. 

He twisted his head to peer through the crowd. His flashlight was too far for him to reach, even if he stretched out full length. Hux gripped the pendulum’s chain so tightly it bit into his palm. He let the pendulum slip from his fingers. With one sharp yank, the chain snapped, and two broken ends dangled over his fist. The pendulum swung like a bird in flight, came back on its short tether, and stopped at an angle. Not pointing downward, like gravity dictated, but slightly up and forward, pulling gently.

Shock rolled through him, and then hope. This was it. The proof that Kylo lingered behind, not just as a spectre with dead eyes and a horrific wound, but as his husband, as his friend. He drew in a deep breath and tensed, his body a coiled spring.

“You’re dead! You’re nothing but spirits! Shadows!”

Hux surged to his feet, quadriceps protesting, the pendulum’s chain clutched in one fist. Spectral hands tried to pull him back as their owners screamed, but the pendulum swung forward, always to the same point, unchanging. He shoved through them, the pendulum thrust out in front, and with a sudden burst of desperate strength, he tore free of their hold. They howled, but he held the pendulum aloft like a lantern and broke into a run.

Emotion flooded into him, feelings he had buried long ago threatening to overwhelm him. Memories came close on their heels, memories of Kylo. The doubt Hux had had when they first met, they way Kylo gradually became part of Hux’s life, Kylo’s smile, his sense of humor, his dedication to their work. The year it took for Hux to realize his own feelings had changed, that he didn’t want to be just friends. How he loved Kylo and Kylo loved him back, two magnets drawn together even when Hux had tried to pull away.

It felt like a star was dying inside the span of his ribs. 

At the end of the dark tunnel was the light. Behind him, grasping spirits hollered and moaned, but the closer he got, the more the wails faded. The pendulum hung steady, the red glow vivid in the dark. The light, too, held steady, a welcoming yellow instead of a harsh, fluorescent white. Hux slowed, cautious, and when he came close enough, the light resolved into a door.

It was clean, blond wood, plain but serviceable. The light he sought peeked from around its edges. He studied it, hesitant, and the pendulum pulsed. Swallowing, Hux took hold of the brass door knob. The door swung silently on its hinges.

It opened onto a room. Only a room. Not a plethora of doors, nor exits, nor branching tunnels nor stairs. Just a room. A long room with white linoleum floors, pale plaster walls and high ceilings. Two rows of beds stretched back, all of them covered in clean white linens and fluffed pillows, the brass bed frames polished and reflecting the light of someone’s bedside lamp. A singular, peaceful point at the center of it all. Hux wondered if this was what Danvers had intended to be at its outset. Cautiously, he crossed the threshold.

In the center of the room, flanked by beds, stood Kylo.

He was more pale than Hux had ever seen. His broad shoulders were hunched, and his dark hair flopped over his face. Striped pyjama bottoms ended at his ankles, and muddied white slippers covered his feet. A white tunic-style hospital gown hung off his frame, slipping down off one shoulder, the neckline stained with blood.

“Kylo,” Hux said hoarsely.

Hux followed the awful gash that bisected Kylo’s face and arced down his neck before it disappeared into his tunic. He could still follow the length of the injury even beneath the gown, dark stains revealing its path. When he looked again at Kylo’s face, his husband was watching him. Kylo’s eyes were no longer black. In the light of the room, they were the honey brown Hux was used to seeing. 

He took a halting step and nearly stumbled. He couldn’t look down to watch his feet, he couldn’t look away from Kylo. He was so tired, but still he moved carefully, as though Kylo were a scared animal that would spook at the merest provocation. 

Sure enough, something between fear and recognition sparked in Kylo’s eyes. The dead look, the one Hux thought would haunt him until his own death, was gone. Kylo flinched with the next step and took one of his own, backwards. Away from Hux.

Hux stared at Kylo, the tightness in his chest suffocating. Kylo looked so... so alive, so real. 

“Kylo. I’m sorry.” He swallowed hard, advancing slowly. The pendulum hung from his hand, glowing brightly, gently swinging. This close, Hux could finally see the constellations of moles that dotted Kylo’s face. “I left you. I promised to protect you, and I left you. I let you down.” 

He wondered if Kylo could see him, being a ghost, and if yes, what he saw. Clothing filthy, hair a mess, soaked in his own sweat, face red where tears had stung his cheeks. He was no better than the clawing patients he had fought his way through to reach this point. Kylo had said that Hux drew Danvers’ attention with his orderly manner, running his team like a doctor would run a ward. He doubted Danvers felt that way about him now. 

“I...” Hux swallowed hard, desperate to apologize. “I called you crazy. I called you childish. I told you to leave and this is my fault. I did this to you, and I didn’t find you and bring you home.” 

“Armitage...” Kylo finally whispered.

His voice pierced Hux’s heart. He held his hand out, palm open as for a panicked horse. Slowly, holding his breath, he reached up. His fingers shook. His entire body braced for the pain and disappointment of sliding right through Kylo’s ghost, but he had to try.

He touched the solid edge of Kylo’s cheek, just before the wound began, and they both gasped.

“How?” Hux asked. 

Kylo flinched, but then his eyes closed and he leaned into the touch, his ruined cheek coming to rest against Hux’s palm. The gesture was so familiar; how had Hux forgotten the way Kylo would dip his head towards every caress?

Except Kylo’s skin was warm and his blood was feverishly hot and sticky. He could feel Kylo’s pulse, and he felt the soft exhale of breath on his wrist. Hux stared as Kylo opened his eyes. Their gazes locked, and bile rose in the back of his throat at a more horrifying realization.

Kylo was alive.

He shook his head. “No. Kylo —”

“Armitage, where have you been? I looked for you.” Kylo’s voice was cracked and dry, as if he’d been denied water for too long. 

What was left of Hux’s heart broke, and he blinked back the tears that stung his eyes. This was impossible. This was miraculous and terrible all at once. He wanted to throw his arms around Kylo, test how real he was, kiss him and beg his forgiveness. “I’m sorry, Kylo. I let you down, but we’re going now. You’re not staying here a moment longer —”   
  
“Are you so sure?”    
  
Kylo stiffened and Hux whipped around, dropping his hand from Kylo’s cheek. A chill seeped into the room. Snoke stood a few feet away, cane in hand, white coat pristine and freshly starched. The light gleamed on his bald skull.

Protective rage filled Hux. “Snoke.” He spat the name as if it were poison. “You kept him alive. You tortured him! You thought I couldn’t do it, but I found him. I’m taking him home. I’m not letting you keep him!”

“Now, now.” The doctor smiled, every inch the kindly grandfather, but the deep wrinkles and skeletal hollows of his cheeks made the gesture into a grotesque parody of kindness. “Don’t be overdramatic. He wasn’t tortured, were you, Kylo? On the contrary, he’s my star patient.”

Hux thought of the chair in Snoke’s office, and the swarm of dirty, senseless patients, and his skin crawled. “You’re a monster.”

Snoke shook his head, amused. “It doesn’t have to be a fight, Armitage. I’m offering you something.” 

“I don’t want any more games!”

“No games. An offer, as I said.” 

Hux shifted to the side, blocking Kylo from view, his back against Kylo’s chest. They had always been nearly of a height, only an inch or two difference to their stature, but now Kylo needed protection. Behind him, Kylo took hold of Hux’s hand, Kylo’s fingers hot and calloused.

“I don’t want anything you have to offer, Snoke. I want my husband.” 

“Then have him. But then again,” the doctor said slyly, leaning on his cane, “are you sure that’s what Kylo needs? You think you know him, Armitage, but you have no idea what he’s suffered. You can’t understand. I’m the only doctor in this room. I’m the only one who can help him.”

“I won’t leave him with you, not again. You’re wasting your time.”

Snoke’s white brows rose.

“Wasting time. Is that what you think I do here?” 

He came forward, cane tapping along the floor. Hux pressed himself against Kylo, leaning back as Snoke came to stand before them, peering down his nose at Hux as though he were a cockroach. Despite his initial frail appearance, he was disturbingly tall and his gaze was sharp. He loomed over them, sneering.

“You can’t comprehend the power inside of him, what it does to him. He needs someone trained to help people in his position. That responsibility would rest solely on your shoulders, and let’s be frank: you’re no doctor..” Snoke’s voice was pervasive, coiling around them like a serpent. “I can help him, though. I’m a professional. Don’t think I’m driving you away. You don’t need to leave. You can stay here, with him, together. Let me take care of him. Let me help you.”

He was offering protection. If they stayed, they would be safe. A small space away from all the suffering and pain. Hux glanced around the room. It was clean and comfortable, nicer than their first apartment and better furnished. But it wasn’t home. It was a trap.

“We have private rooms. Two beds, or one, if you prefer,” Snoke said, misinterpreting the look. “You’d have all the help you’d ever need.” 

Kylo’s hand tightened in his own, a quick squeeze. He stepped up beside Hux, but he couldn’t hold the doctor’s gaze for more than a second. Kylo had never been a meek man. Whatever Snoke had done to reduce him so far, to instill such fear inside of him, it had worked — until Hux returned to Danvers. “I want to go home.”

Snoke offered them a prison. Staying here, playing pretend with the dead — that wasn’t why Hux had come. He’d come to find his husband, to find peace so he could go on living. He had more than he’d ever hoped well within his grasp, and all Snoke offered him was another cage. 

Hux tightened his hold on Kylo’s hand. “No. You’re wrong. I’m not alone.” Even as he said it, the truth of it spilled through him. Rey, Phasma, even Poe, none of them had ever left him. He was the one who needed to accept what they were offering. “I have support. We have support. We have family and friends, and we’re leaving. He’s not your toy any longer. Go to hell.”

“Armitage… I had hoped you’d be reasonable. I thought you a smart man. Apparently, I was wrong.” Snoke seemed to grow taller, and the room shifted around them. Shadows stretched and pulled, the space warping itself into darkness, no longer warm and inviting. The bedside lamp went out. There was a twitch as Snoke’s hands tightened on his cane, and suddenly Kylo wrenched Hux backwards, throwing him to the ground.

Hux landed on his shoulder with a grunt, his hands opening reflexively. The pendulum rolled away, the delicate crystal clinking along the cement. Something whooshed through the air where he had been, and the pressure in the room increased, turning the atmosphere thick and difficult to breathe. 

Snoke hefted his cane threateningly, the gold tip glinting as his shadow elongated, swelling. All around them the cozy, clean room was swallowed up by thick darkness, the past giving way to a filthy, empty chamber of 2009. “Do you think you can stop me? Do you know who I am? I’m in charge here!” 

Kylo reached down and grabbed Hux’s arm, trying to drag him upright. “Come on! Get up, run!”

Hux couldn’t get his feet under him. His heels scrabbled at the dirty concrete as Snoke flung his hand out, fingers rigid. Hux’s throat closed, squeezed by an unknown force. He squirmed, falling back as he pawed at his own neck, trying to dislodge a hand that wasn’t there. He couldn’t breathe. His blood roared in his ears. Spots danced at the corners of his vision, narrowing it to nothing but Snoke and his icy blue eyes. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t —

Kylo’s touch disappeared, and Hux fell to the floor as the force choking him evaporated. He coughed, sucking in lungfuls of air, clutching his throat as he got to his knees, looking round for Kylo.

His husband stood between Hux and Snoke, his arms open wide, hands like claws. A snarl twisted Kylo’s mouth, his hair wild and matted with blood. The jagged wound crossing his face had reopened, blood dripping from it onto Kylo’s tunic. He lunged for Snoke, but the old man beat him back, cracking his cane expertly on Kylo’s collarbone before ramming him in the gut with the tip. 

Kylo stumbled and crashed backward into Hux, knocking them both to the ground. Instantly, Kylo rolled off Hux and jumped to his feet, feral instinct etched onto his features, but before Hux could follow, his gaze caught on the pendulum, radiating red light.

“You can’t leave, Kylo Ren!” Snoke declared, teeth like bleached bones against his dark gums. He swung his cane as Kylo ducked to the side, teeth bared. “You’re mine, do you hear? Mine!”

Hux snatched the pendulum from the ground where it had fallen, fingernails scraping against the cement. Snoke swung again, blow landing with a meaty thud on Kylo’s shoulder. His husband yelped, and Hux cried out in fury and fear. He pushed up and grabbed Kylo’s hand.

“Now!”

One pull was enough. They ran.

They dashed through the doorway into the tunnel, clinging to each other like children, breath coming in harsh white plumes. The cold increased until Hux’s ears hurt and his lungs ached. The pressure around them was suffocating. He couldn’t get enough oxygen. He stumbled, the pendulum’s light bouncing over the walls, and Kylo yanked him suddenly to the side.

“Here!”

Hux nearly shot right past the doorway, his shoulder whacking against the doorframe as Kylo pulled him into a tunnel Hux had never seen.

“I’ve been this way, it’s faster, hurry!”

Hux had no choice. He didn’t know where they were, Kylo seemed to have a plan, and the pendulum was their only source of light. Each time it swung on its tether, the light shifted around them in a dizzying strobe. His foot caught on something and he yelped, pitching forward into darkness. Only Kylo’s grip kept him from falling. The light came up on another swing and Hux tripped again on the uneven slope, sudden realization bubbling up into hope.

These were stairs. 

It was enough to discover a last burst of speed and recover from his slip, to keep up with Kylo. They needed to escape the tunnels, break free of Snoke’s labyrinth. The only way out was up.

“Where are we going!?” Hux yelled.

Kylo didn’t slow. They hit a landing and kept running. The red light of the pendulum glinted off of green-tiled walls, and suddenly a pair of polished metal doors emerged from the dark. Hux tightened his grip on Kylo’s hand as Kylo slammed through them, then smacked against him as Kylo stopped. The unforgettable stench of death and formaldehyde hit Hux like a wall.

They were in the morgue.

The table, the work lights, shattered glass, they were gone. It was as it would have been in Snoke’s time, in the 1930s. Everything was new, metal and white enamel decorating the drawers and countertops. The drains in the floor were free of grime, and right in front of them, there were gurneys. Three rows of them, neatly set end to end, each supporting white sheets draped over human shapes. More than that, there was staff at work, doctors in their white aprons and caps bent over a waxy cadaver. Hux froze. 

All at once the doctors looked up from their grim work, and one demanded, “Who let you down here?”

Kylo jerked Hux away from the doors. The morgue was the nexus where the east and west tunnels met and Kylo pulled him to the west. 

“No! Kylo! The stairs! They go to the first floor!” Hux shouted.

“Get them!” a doctor ordered through a surgical mask. “Move, move!”

Kylo whirled on Hux. For a single beat, Hux thought that feral look was for him, but Kylo threw himself in front of Hux as the room exploded into motion. Doctors scrambled up and rushed toward them, arms out. An aide darted to a glass case just beside the door and smashed it with a small hammer. Red lights flashed. A siren wailed from somewhere within the walls.

It wasn’t only Snoke. His entire staff still resided here, and the alarm had been raised. 

Hux could hear feet pounding down the stairs. The double doors blew open with a bang, and from the shadows came rusty laughter and the glint of the gold tipped cane.

“RUN!” Kylo shouted.

Kylo shoved Hux towards the tunnel to the furthest side of the morgue, the one Hux had entered from before the seance. It seemed like years ago. Hux reached back for Kylo, he wouldn’t lose him, but Kylo stepped away. He seized a gurney, ignoring the white-sheeted contents, and slammed it into the group of doctors. The gurney tipped and a body fell to the floor, and the doctors leaped back, exclaiming angrily. 

Hux grabbed Kylo’s hand and hauled him to the far door. They ran past the gurneys in neat rows, breathless, and escaped through the doorway, heading for the east wards. Doctors and shadows chased after them. The wind returned, blasting after them, and its howling drowned out the wailing sirens.

The tunnel twisted around them. Snoke manifested through the shadows, always behind them, around them, howling in fury. Fire shot up Hux’s legs, his muscles threatening to cramp. It was Kylo’s turn to stumble, and Hux almost lost his grip. Their linked hands were slick and sticky at the same time, and Hux knew with dreadful certainty that Kylo’s wound was worse. It wasn’t large in the grand scheme of things, but they were running, the blood pumping harder, and each step drained more and more liquid life from Kylo’s body.

“Hux,” Kylo panted. “I can’t. You. You go —”

“No, Kylo! Kylo, look!” 

There was a new light bouncing towards them, white light, not red. Hux couldn’t even tell how far they had gone, if they had missed a turnoff in their frantic bid to escape, but the light was real, and the warbling yowl of an EMF detector was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard in his entire life.

His breath caught in a sob. “OVER HERE — oh!”

His hand was in Kylo’s, holding tight despite the slippery blood, but Kylo’s fingers slipped. Hux stopped, pulling harder as tendrils of darkness shot out of the walls and twined around Kylo, snagging his tunic, tangling in his hair. Kylo gave a choked scream, and Hux echoed it. He pulled again, shouting, desperate —

— and Kylo stumbled into his arms as the new light pierced the darkness, bisecting it. The shadows whipped like hissing snakes as they dissolved, and Hux clasped Kylo tightly to him. 

Rey ran up beside them, her sneakers crunching on the debris-strewn floor. “Hux —Ben?!” 

Rey grabbed Hux’s shoulder to pull them apart, but it didn’t scare him. He allowed it, letting Rey separate them even as he seized Kylo’s hand. Hux couldn’t speak, though he had to. He tried to force the words out with breath he didn’t have. He had let her see Kylo, that was enough, that was all they could spare. He tried to push past her, babbling breathlessly. “S-Snoke — We have to go, we have —” 

“Hux, wait, stop!” Her arm went around his shoulders, her face grim. “I’m here, we can help!”

“We? Who —”

Behind her, more beams of light blossomed. Rose came first at a run, then Finn, calling out Rey’s name until he spotted her. They rushed to her, skidding to a halt beside their leader. 

Rose had blood on her shirt and her hair was askew, breathing almost as hard as Hux. “We found you! We — oh my God. Is that —”

Poe brought up the rear, a frown on his face until he saw Kylo. His mouth fell open. “Holy shit.”

Hux shook his head, instinctively trying to shield Kylo from their shocked scrutiny. “He’s not a ghost. It doesn’t — We don’t have time.”

Rey reached for her cousin, but Kylo backed away, clamping down on Hux’s hand. Kylo wouldn’t recognize her, Hux realized. It had been so long, she wasn’t fifteen anymore —

“He’s alive?” Poe asked, staring. “Kylo? Kylo, man —”

“Oh my God,” Rose said again. “Is he okay?”

They moved to Kylo, all of them but Finn, but Hux pulled Kylo behind him. “Stop! We can’t, we don’t have time, he won’t let us go. If he catches us, we’re all —”

Their flashlights flickered. Hux glanced back into the tunnel, terror swelling as the shadows twisted again, swirling as they moved closer, rolling in like a fog.

Poe swung his flashlight up and whacked it with one hand. “Rey! We’re losing light, what's going on?”

Finn held up the EMF detector Hux had heard. It keened louder as the darkness surrounded them, the flashlight beams barely holding it at bay.

Kylo shrank close to Hux, pressing into his side, but Hux could only spare his husband a glance. The sick, stomach-twisting feeling, the potent combination of ice and panic that followed Snoke like a miasma, was growing. It crawled up the back of his throat, sour. He stared into the darkness, straining his eyes for the slightest movement.

One flashlight died and the temperature plummeted. Rey grabbed Hux’s shoulders. “Everyone, quiet, stop talking! Hux! Hux, we have to go! We have to get out of here!”    
  
“Come on, before the lights go out!” Finn yelled, his voice full of urgency.

Yes. Yes, that’s what Hux wanted. They had to run, to flee. They had to get out.

The shadows surged upward, crawled over the ceiling, and Snoke laughed and laughed. He didn’t care if they ran. He expected that. He didn’t care. Which meant...

Hux’s breath came too fast, but he shook his head. “No. No, he won’t let us go. That’s his plan. He wants us lost, Rey. He wants to chase us. If we run —”

Suddenly Rose let out a scream. Poe and Finn grabbed her, pulling her back into the circle of light. Her flashlight bulb exploded with a pop, and Kylo jerked, trying to get away. Hux tightened his grip and held him fast. Another light popped, sending tiny bits of glass everywhere, winking like falling stars in the beams of the three remaining flashlights.

Through the gloom Hux could see a figure coalescing, a void darker than their surroundings. It was coming closer, closer —   
  
“What is that?” Rey asked, eyes huge.

Hux didn’t turn to look at her, instead putting himself in front of Kylo, his hand shifting firmly to his husband's wrist. Glass crunched underfoot. The pressure increased, and Hux’s ears popped. Groaning sounds rumbled through the tunnel, shaking dirt loose from the ceiling. The walls trembled, and the clawing, frigid wind picked up, just as it had in the morgue. Finn and Poe dragged Rose even closer, shoved her against Rey and pressed in tight before turning their backs to the women, flashlights shining outward.

Poe gestured with his flickering light. “What is it, Rey? What the hell’s going on?”

“I didn’t sign up for this!” Finn exclaimed.

Finn’s light exploded outward, and he dropped it with a yelp. The pressure ratcheted up another notch, grinding down on Hux’s shoulders, compressing his body as though he were at the bottom of the ocean. Rose gasped.

Hux immediately wished for Kylo, the way he was before all this happened. Kylo had more skills, knowledge, and years of experience using his skills as a medium. He could help. He had to help. Hux turned to look at him, the unsteady light just enough to see the fearful look in Kylo’s eyes. 

He turned to face his husband fully, letting go of Rey. He put his palm against Kylo’s cheek once more, and when that didn’t work, he gripped Kylo’s ear and pulled hard. Kylo started, but it worked. Kylo’s gaze slid off of the darkness to focus on Hux, even as a wave of energy rocked the group like a swelling wave in the sea. 

Rey staggered a step, wincing, and yelled over the wind, “We have to exorcise it!” Her voice revealed her fear. She was only nineteen. This was far beyond her scope of experience. 

“Kylo! I know you know how to do this, you have to help Rey!” 

“I… I can’t…” Kylo tried to say, but the howling wind carried away his voice. 

“Jesus Christ, are you serious?” Poe yelled over the noise. He leaned into them even more, shining his light at the shadows closing in. “C’mon, Kylo! If anyone can do it, you can!”

Rey clutched at Kylo’s arm. “Kylo, please! I need your help!”

The wind shifted, taking on a higher note. Dark shapes writhed, black on black, and a voice hissed from within. “You. You’re like him.” The air compressed, snapped around Hux, stinging, and howled. “I WANT HER. I WANT BOTH!”

Kylo twitched, and Hux saw recognition light his husband’s gaze. The fear toward Rey slid away, and Kylo’s shoulders straightened. The wind lashed his dark hair against his face, the shadows howled for them, but he stared at her and nodded, then looked to Hux.

“It’s her, I promise.” Hux pressed the pendulum into Kylo’s right hand. “We’re here. We’re all here.”

The pendulum brightened abruptly, the red light warm, suffusing their circle with delicious heat. The wind bayed and ripped at their clothes, but the frigid cold couldn’t reach Kylo. Poe and Finn glanced back, startled. 

Hux held his ground, nodding. “Go on.”

Kylo held the pendulum out to Rey. It swung violently on its chain as a wave of energy crashed into them, dust and trash rising into the air. Rey staggered back, but Kylo caught her by her left wrist with his other hand, pulling her closer. She stared at him. He let go, and her hand closed around Kylo’s, around the pendulum, and they shared a look. 

The crystal crackled and blazed, almost too bright to look at with both mediums' hands on it. Hux was momentarily transfixed by the gem, but saw quickly it wasn’t only because of the two psychics. It wasn’t only Kylo and Rey. 

Rose was pressed to Rey’s side, and along Rey’s right hip, Rose clasped Rey’s left hand. Finn frowned and turned as Hux had, his right hand taking Rose’s left. 

It wasn’t an instinct Hux wanted to give into, to reach out, take hold of someone else, but he knew about exorcisms, he knew what Kylo was doing, and that the team felt it. Hux switched to holding Kylo’s hand firmly with his left and motioned to Poe. With a nod, Poe dropped his right hand and took Finn’s left. Then he extended his hand to Hux, and Hux took it.

The pendulum pulsed the moment their hands closed their tiny circle, and the red light expanded like a volcano erupting. Sparks burst from it, vivid red particles falling and fading with each crimson throb. 

The screaming winds climbed to a fever pitch. Dirt flew through the air, trash assaulted them, bits of paper and plastic, candy wrappers for candy that hadn’t existed in fifty years, all of it smashing at them as the crushing pressure increased. Hux staggered, squinting, and clung to Kylo and Poe with everything he had.   
  
Finn’s voice broke through the howl of wind. “Rey, whatever you’re doing, hurry up!”

“He’s right,” Poe shouted. “He’s right, this place is collapsing!” 

Rey and Kylo were speaking, their lips moving, but the words and their meaning were lost to Hux. The wind stole everything, his warmth, his breath. The darkness weighed them down, determined to win, too heavy. Hux couldn’t take it. He pressed his forehead to Kylo’s shoulder, squeezed Kylo’s hand, and gave Kylo every scrap of spiritual power he possessed.

The pendulum was a bonfire forced into the space of a gem, heat, and light rained from it, but it wasn’t enough. The tendrils of shadow clawed at them, trying to suffocate the light. Hux could barely stand to look at the pendulum, but he forced his watering eyes to Kylo’s face. _I love you,_ he thought. No, it needed more.

“Kylo!” The wind ripped the words away, but Hux shouted them anyway, so loudly his throat ached. “I love you!”

The pendulum exploded in a blinding flash, and Hux went flying. 

Pain stabbed his shoulder as he smacked into the cement. He struggled to get up, tried to drag air back into his lungs. Impenetrable night covered everything. He couldn’t see. They were fighting and he couldn’t help, he couldn’t even see his own hands. 

Then he realized the air was still. The ringing in his ears was the silence left behind. 

This couldn’t be it, they couldn’t have lost. His ears continued ringing as though a bomb had gone off beside him. He shouted Kylo’s name, and his own voice sounded like it came from underwater, weak and distant. He tried again, yelling so loud his throat ached. He couldn’t give up, not now. He stood, his legs shaking, hands out to feel his way.

Someone said something. A female voice, Rey or Rose, he couldn’t tell. He opened his mouth to reply, and there was a flickering. One of the flashlights came back to life. Then another. One by one, they were coming alive and filling the tunnel with light. He could see.

All around him, the rest of the team groaned, trying to push themselves upright. They were all there, all of them. Even Kylo. 

Hux’s throat caught at the sight of his husband slumped against the wall. He looked like a rag doll, and there was so much blood —

Hux stumbled along the stone wall to Kylo, dropping to his knees beside him. He reached out, cupping Kylo’s uninjured cheek, his ears ringing and panic rising. He could hear the team calling him, but Kylo’s eyes were closed, and the pendulum was gone. Fear gripped Hux’s heart. 

And then Kylo coughed and groaned. He opened his perfect honey-brown eyes, gazed up at Hux, and smiled. He was alive.

“Kylo,” Hux whispered.

Kylo reached up, brushing tears from Hux’s cheek. “Don’t cry.”

Hux cried anyway. Kylo was alive. They’d won. 


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by StarKillerBae

**Time: 05:05** **  
** **Date: 11/01/09** **  
** **Beverly Hospital** **  
** **Beverly, Massachusetts**

Hux’s vision was swimming. 

After everything, the sirens were too loud. The police, with their red and blue flashing lights. The ambulance, red and white. The too-bright fluorescents of the ER that drilled into his skull. His feet ached, his knees were scraped, and half his body was covered in bruises. The word ‘exhaustion’ no longer conveyed how threadbare he felt. 

But he couldn’t stop, or he might not start again. Who else knew Kylo’s social security number by heart, or his medical history? Who knew his blood type? He couldn’t rest. Kylo needed him. So he sat in the uncomfortable plastic chairs and filled out form after form with someone else’s cheap Bic pen, scratching out phone numbers and insurance providers and praying they’d let him see Kylo soon. 

When they called him back to the treatment area, it was a struggle to keep from grabbing Kylo and hugging him to make sure he was real. He stood there, Kylo’s hand in his, their grips so tight they hurt, as the nurse practitioner told him what the plan was, and how they were holding Kylo overnight. Hux had asked why, parasites and infection dancing gruesomely in his thoughts.

“He has a fever,” the nurse-practitioner replied. “And he says it’s 2004. It may be easier if the news comes from you.”

Hux nodded with sober responsibility. She was right. It needed to come from him, and Kylo needed to hear it. She left them alone, and Hux squeezed Kylo’s hand reassuringly.

The conversation was hard.

* * *

Now, hours afterward navigating piles of red tape, they were finally being assigned a room. Hux had to let go of Kylo’s hand as they helped him into the required wheelchair, but as soon as it was logistically possible, he took hold of iit again.

The hallways were white and long, and though they were quiet and modern, they made Hux uncomfortable. It was better when the nurse and the orderly showed them to a small private room done in pastels. It held one bed, two boxy chairs, and a TV that looked as though it was older than Hux. The orderly helped Kylo into the bed while the nurse informed Hux that a doctor would be in soon. Hux had seen enough hospitals to know that ‘soon’ usually meant hours later, and honestly, that suited him just fine.

He smiled and thanked the staff, walked them to the door, and shut it. Exhaustion hit him, dragging at his shoulders as he turned to Kylo, smile wilting at the edges as he took in Kylo’s face. The clean hospital gown they’d made him change into. His still-dirty hair.

His love. His poor —

“Ben!” Rey’s voice surprised Hux so badly he leapt aside, and luckily, too, because a moment later Rey hurtled through the room to the bed and threw her arms around her cousin, hugging him desperately. “Ben, God, you’re okay. You’re really here, you’re really okay, I can’t believe it.”

The smell of freshly cooked meat wafted up, and Hux blinked. “What are you —Did you bring dinner?”

“Yeah.” She sniffled and sat back on one folded leg, freeing a startled Kylo from her hold. In one hand was a fast food paper bag, folded over at the top. Wiping at her eyes with the back of her wrist, she held the bag out to Kylo. “Well, no. I didn’t buy it. Poe said you’d be hungry. He went out and got these for you. There’s five in there, the ones you like. The cheeseburgers. And fries and an apple pie, too. He remembered Hux likes the pies.”

Warily, Kylo took the bag, but his gaze stayed on her. Rey had saved him. She’d been there in the tunnels with them, but it had been dark and terrifying, and half of Kylo’s eyesight had been covered in blood. Seeing her in the clean light of a modern hospital room, teary-eyed and four years older, must be jarring. 

“Kylo?” Hux went to the bed, leaned in and gently lifted the bag from Kylo’s hands. “Is this okay?”

His husband’s forehead wrinkled, then smoothed out. He nodded before he finally found his voice. “I thought.. You should be in California. Why are you still here?” 

“I wouldn’t leave you now for a million dollars, Ben. Not ever. But I know what you mean. I’ve been here, I moved out a year ago, for college. UMass?” Rey pulled back, wiping hard at her eyes. “I called Aunt Leia. They’re flying out right now, as soon as the jet is fueled up. They’ll be here soon, okay?”

“My parents?” Kylo looked at her with mounting horror, then turned to Hux, fear etched across his features, and Hux’s chest constricted. “Why?”

Rey took his hands and squeezed them. “Because they miss you. We all missed you. They want to make sure you’re okay.”

“It’s been that long?” Kylo asked, his voice strange and tight.

Hux swallowed. "We talked about this, Kylo." 

“Four years, remember?” Rey was solemn, but still quietly grateful and happy. That seemed to be her basic personality: optimist. Hux found he didn’t hate it. In fact, after the past four years, it was refreshing. “It’s been a while. It’s okay, though, we’ll catch you up. You’ll think you were there the whole time.”

The fear in Kylo’s eyes wavered, changing. “Four years...”

“Rey.” Hux stepped closer, gesturing toward the door. “Are the others still out in the waiting room?”

“The others — oh, yes. The nurse came out and I said I was Ben’s sister, and she let me come back. I should go tell them that Ben — I mean, that Kylo’s okay.” She smiled back at Kylo. Her hair was a mess, her clothes dirty, but she’d waited. They’d all waited. 

“Go ahead. It’s your turn to get something to eat. It’s been a long night.”

Rey’s eyebrows rose, and then she smiled. “Oh. Right! Yeah, they’re probably hungry. Ben, we’ll be back in a while to see you, okay?” She leaned in, kissed Kylo on the cheek, and slid off the bed, regarding Hux seriously. “Watch him. We’ll get you a phone while we’re out. Don’t leave until then, okay?”

Hux nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay.” A last look, and then she was out the door. 

He followed her, shutting it behind her. His hand lingered on the metal. Four years.

“You should sit down,” Kylo said.

Hux turned to look at his husband. His voice was still so rough. Even with fluids and care, he was going to be recovering for a while. His skin was pale, and in the soft light, Hux could see how much weight he had lost. The wound across his face was covered partially by bandages, but peeking out from the fresh dressings at the height of Kylo’s cheek bone were three sets of ugly black stitches. 

Kylo pushed the fuzzy blue hospital blanket down, exposing the white fitted sheet. “Sit with me.” 

Hux didn’t have it in him to fight. Kylo shifted over, and Hux went. He stopped at the side of the bed and leaned down to kiss Kylo’s forehead, still warm with receding fever. 

“Please?”

“...Okay,” Hux whispered, and climbed onto the bed, gingerly settling himself beside Kylo. It was surreal, like a dream that was so good it couldn’t possibly be true. Hux had never expected he would ever again lie on a bed beside his husband. His chest ached, his love so profound it hurt. 

He didn’t want to ask the next question, but he had to. Unsure of where else to start, where to begin unraveling everything that had happened, the words came out hesitantly. “Kylo... I’m sorry about your grandfather’s pendulum.”

“Don’t be,” Kylo said, his speech slower than it had been, measured as if he might run out. “He saved us.”

Hux nodded. Knowing what he did about Kylo’s grandfather, he agreed that helping a family member would have been a very high priority of his. “I... I wanted to ask something. What happened that night? I looked for you, we searched for days. ” 

Kylo didn’t answer right away. He shifted more of his weight to press against Hux’s side, his fingers brushing Hux’s arm. “...I don’t know. I don’t really remember how I got there. I remember we were together, and after that... It gets fuzzy. I kept going in circles, trying to find you, but there were so many spirits there, and rooms, and then... Then you weren’t there anymore, and it was just me.”  
  
“I know, I saw them. The ghosts. I didn’t realize...” Hux moved his arm to grasp Kylo’s hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was like that for you. What he was doing. I’m sorry.”

“Shh. You’ve apologized a hundred times already. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Are you sure?”

Kylo smiled tiredly and leaned over, closing the gap between them. He kissed Hux chastely, then murmured against his lips, “I’m sure.”

When the kiss ended, Kylo leaned back against the bed. Hux gladly followed him, lying on his side and resting his head on Kylo's shoulder. Hux was struck by how Kylo still, beneath the sanitizing wash and the impersonal modern hospital clothing, smelled like his husband. He had barely settled in before his eyes were drifting shut, listening to Kylo’s steady heart beat. It had been four long years since he had slept beside anyone, but Kylo was his again, and sleep gently pulled him down. 

**The End**

** **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> StarKillerBae: This is my first time writing something longer than a drabble really, first time doing a collaboration like this, and it's been really really amazing! I can’t thank Eighth_chiharu enough for all of her hard work, keeping me on track, editing, adding in tons of amazing little lines or moments that hold this whole thing together. Thank you to our beta readers, Kona and Kyuu as well, you guys are amazing.
> 
> And finally thank you to everyone who has read this far, everyone who has ever left a comment, it’s been amazing knowing people care about this story and have wanted to see it through!
> 
> Eighth_chiharu: This was my first true collaboration with another author. I had a wonderful time. I operated more in the editorial capacity than in the structural, and I’m glad for it. PLOT IS HARD, and frankly it’s refreshing to work with someone who knows how to keep things simple and rein ideas in. Thank you to SKB. Thank you to our beta readers, Kona and Kyuu, for giving us important feedback and catching my inexcusable mistakes. Lastly, thank you to all of our readers. Knowing I was making someone else happy, that other people were entertained, kept me going and let me finish a long, exciting, fulfilling project. Thank you again.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Aftermaths](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25700770) by [Euterpein](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euterpein/pseuds/Euterpein)


End file.
